


Cheat the Devil

by Leni Jess (Leni_Jess)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-02
Updated: 2011-09-02
Packaged: 2017-10-23 08:49:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/248457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni_Jess/pseuds/Leni%20Jess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus Snape needs to get away from his past, and possibly from other people's limiting expectations and his own belief that he deserves nothing better. Several of his former students take a hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cheat the Devil

  
_You can cheat the devil and slice a piece of the sun  
Burn up the highway but before you run  
You gotta love someone  
You gotta love someone._

Bernie Taupin, _You Gotta love Someone_

 

Harry opened the door. "Kiss kiss."

Hermione chopped the greenstuff twice more, and set her knife down on the workbench. Then she lifted her head. He was used to that.

"It's not dinnertime yet, surely?"

"Check the clock."

Her eyes went to the Muggle clock beneath the big photograph, rather than the wizarding clock on the side wall, which started to mutter in a tone much like Hermione's when she had to stop work.

"I thought I had hours in hand," she said ruefully, sweeping the leaves carefully into a glass bowl.

Harry waited while she tilted the bowlful into the cauldron bubbling gently on its stand, stirred whatever number of times was required, then lifted the cauldron away and covered it so the contents could steep.

Then she went through the unvarying ritual of finishing up in her Potions workroom: cleaned and tidied away all her equipment and supplies, washed thoroughly, hung up her work robes beside the door, and last of all freed her hair from the severe knot on the back of her head. It sprang loose enthusiastically; in its own way, Harry thought, as self-willed as his. A pity wizards couldn't influence their hair much; few had hair as obliging as Lucius Malfoy's.

He had allowed for this delay in choosing when to remind her. He was not surprised, either, that Hermione celebrated her release from concentration by sliding down the recycled banister he had installed on the broad staircase he had built in their warehouse between the second floor and the first. Their living space was still almost completely open; even the kitchen that had been their second priority after her workrooms had only low walls to enclose the mix of Muggle and wizarding appliances, shelves and cupboards.

Harry slid down the banister after her with absent grace rather than relish.

Hermione started setting the table after a quick glance at the stovetop to see what he had prepared. In theory they shared the cooking, as they did the cleaning. They were ready to tend to dull things like cleaning and bed-making by magic, though Hermione’s workroom and equipment was cleaned rigorously by hand, but Harry liked to cook. He claimed it let him think.

Hermione had been surprised to find, after they left Hogwarts and at last managed to set up their fledgling business here, how many household chores Harry could accomplish efficiently while thinking, now that he had peace and quiet while doing so. The results of thinking were usually as visible as the results of busywork, if only in a litter of parchment with diagrams and cramped notes, all of them numbered.

"How's it coming?" he asked her, after hunger had been satisfied and he was putting the covered pot of soup in the cold cupboard.

He had kept back a couple of pieces of chicken; as like as not Ron would drop by later, after whatever evening class the Auror College required. Ron ate with them, or with the twins in their shop, or with Ginny and her employer and boyfriend the Healer of magical creatures. Ron would even eat with his fellow second-year students, or accept an invitation from Kingsley or Tonks, rather than Apparate home to the Burrow and his mother's sole attention much before bedtime. He lived for the day when he could persuade one of his friends in London to rent him a bedroom, and was loudly indignant that Harry and Hermione would not.

"Aren't I your boyfriend?" he would ask, striking an attitude, usually before the kitchen fireplace.

Hermione always said repressively, "No, Ron. No more than Harry is."

"If Harry isn't either, what've you got against letting me stay here then? You have enough room."

Hermione never said, 'You're an Auror, or going to be. The last thing Harry wants is Aurors keeping an eye on him again, wondering if he's going to make you act weird too.'

Nor did she ever say, 'We're not at school now, Ron. I'm not going to let you huddle in this cosy little circle as if nothing's changed. Make more friends, as we're doing. Hogwarts isn't the world.'

What she did say was even blunter, and much harder to refute. "We need every knut we have, Ron, and it's sure we wouldn't get rent from you for long. As well as Harry having to build you a room into the shell. No."

Ron was honest enough to let the request lie for a few weeks, each time, after that. He sometimes said plaintively that if his parents had managed to bring up seven children on his father's Ministry salary, he didn't see why they couldn't lend him enough to cover a room of his own, instead of saying he could use his old room for as long as he needed to.

Hermione had her own opinion of that, and why, with the war over and no need to dedicate her time to supporting the Order, Molly Weasley still hadn't got herself a job. It was not one she planned to share with Ron or any of Molly's hen-pecked, ambitious children, all of them fiercely determined on independence as soon as possible. Ron's complaint about his parents was a ritual rather than a reality; like Molly, he needed something to complain about.

She had been staring after the soup pot, wondering if they had left enough for Ron's long, still hollow legs, and said absently, "If I was running a factory production line I'd be pleased. Since I'm trying to improve the Calming Potion for Dr Withybones, so she can use it on children without worrying, I'm stuck."

She came back to full attention.

"It's the same old problem, Harry. They commission me to develop something – and that they do it when I'm just two years out of school tells us how very few adequate Potions researchers there are! – then they won't let me experiment properly. They insist on supervising, and I swear, if Withybones cuts out any more of the processes I want to run on the grounds they're a waste of time, I'll throw her commission back in her face! She's a good, kind woman, an excellent Healer, and she knows nothing about Potions development!"

"At least you get to keep the basic fee as well as your supplies costs, if she interferes more than your contract allows. That dodgy lawyer your father put us on to has been the best present he could ever have given the business, when all he intended was to help us convert this place from leasehold to freehold, since it's a Muggle building and a bit hard to lose from their records."

"Mr Howard comes on as a caricature of Shylock, maybe even Fagin, but I wonder sometimes if he's dodgy at all. He's very helpful."

"I think if you looked closely enough, Hermione, you'd find his enthusiasm for his clients' good is greater than his respect for the law."

She shrugged. "From what Daddy says, the wizarding world isn't the only place full of lawyers like that. I'd rather deal with one who cared about his clients instead of for nothing but Ministry regulations."

Harry wasn't as sensitive about references to the Ministry of Magic these days, especially since the Wizengamot replaced Cornelius Fudge with a Minister who had the ability to win and retain broad support from the wizarding community. Minister Fredibert Ingham wasn't worried about Harry Potter, and once he discovered he couldn't exploit Harry's fame, and that Harry wasn't interested in being a public figure, attracting attention away from himself, had let him alone, apart from insisting he show up to receive his Order of Merlin first class. The Ministry itself, however, had changed very little, though Ingham had made a few high-profile reforms in administration.

It still seemed to both of them that avoiding the Ministry's attention was the better path to follow. Harry could never have gone to Auror College, as he had wanted to do when he was younger, without creating a tremendous furore, and resentment among the senior Aurors and teachers and anyone who could see himself losing place or influence to the Boy Who Lived.

For similar reasons, not just expense, they had chosen to set up PearlGate Developments in the East End, as far as they could get from the wizarding centre of Diagon Alley without entirely leaving Old London behind. This abandoned warehouse might soon have been demolished, if Harry under Will Mason's tutelage had not spent two weeks infusing its support structure with magical strength. As it was, they lived almost secretly within a thriving Muggle community, some of whose members were surprisingly not at all ignorant about their world.

At least Harry's hated title didn't surface much these days, except on some anniversaries. This year the reports in the _Daily Prophet_ tended to be further back in the newspaper as the wizarding world cheerfully forgot Harry, along with a good many other people whom the war had visibly cost more. Harry still displayed only one scar; the others, less physical, he would not have made public for the world.

Harry said abruptly, "When I was studying all those architecture texts over at Islington Library, planning the conversion of this place, I sometimes used to go and read other stuff. History of Science, that section was called."

"You discovered the scientific method, Harry?"

Her tone was only lightly mocking. She had much more congenial relations with the Muggle world, after all, and had been given much better teaching there as a child, too, as well as all the opportunity to study that summer holidays had afforded, all denied to Harry.

He grinned back at her. "Of course you'd know about it. I'd been trying to plan my Charms development work according to that sort of iterative, exhaustive approach, even before I knew it had a name, just as you'd like with your Potions work, and I don't get a lot of encouragement either. The whole idea seems to be a blank to the people who think I'm their unofficial apprentice, though Professor Flitwick would recognise it."

He added, "And your patron saint."

"Our former teacher, Harry. We never liked Snape when we were younger, but by the time we left we knew he was good. We didn't know how good. And he might not know the term 'scientific method', but he certainly practises it. It's astonishing how few of his students picked it up from him. As for the older Potions Masters – Harry, it's as if they think they're artists, dreaming things up as they fancy!"

"I don't suppose good artists are all that dreamy either, if we only knew."

More seriously he added, "We did the right thing, setting up our own business, instead of you going to work for St Mungo's, or the Dee hospital in Edinburgh, or me getting a job with the Department of Mysteries. We have to hang on to that independence, no matter how broke we go, or no one will listen to us or let us make any decisions at all, as they do with Ross Holly, in St Mungo's, who must have been one of Snape's best students ever."

"Ross is going mad, keeping them supplied with standard Potions, when he could simply supervise someone else in that work and spend more than half his time on development," she agreed. "It's a pity, but he has those sisters to look after. It’s only being able to train Potions apprentices that keeps him sane. He's trapped, until someone else Snape trained, and who understood all his training, gets more influence there.

"I know, Harry. We're not all that broke, even if you insist on doing everything you can to this place yourself. I think you do it for fun, not just to save money."

She did not mention Harry's vault at Gringotts, nor the interesting artefacts it had proved to contain, as well as the more obvious heaps of galleons. She was determined he should not spend his inheritance on their business, beyond what this building had cost, and he was determined it should remain intact as a hedge against far worse financial weather than this.

Only half jokingly, she realised with a shock of surprise, he commented, "If you could get Snape to join us he'd be invaluable."

Did Harry truly mean he thought he could work with Snape? Each had behaved in a much more civilised way with the other as the war came closer, and then broke over them, learning to cooperate because they had to, to survive, learning to be polite because they no longer had the energy to waste sniping at each other. Battlefield brothers, though never better than opponents in the classroom.

She did not realise how clearly her sadness showed on her face. Her attitude to Snape, and his to her, had changed in her last two years at school too.

She shook her head. '"He'll never break away, Harry. He's convinced he owes Dumbledore too much."

"For exploiting him for twenty years," Harry said rather dryly. "He might never have thought of escape, but there's no reason you can't suggest it to him. We could give him an alternative, maybe more congenial (except for me being here) than a job as Potions Master at St Mungo's, or the Dee."

* * * *

Severus Snape looked over the rows of students scribbling with various degrees of desperation throughout the Great Hall, and thought without pleasure that at the end of this examination week he would be as close as he got to being a free man. No more NEWT or OWL level classes, and after another day or two all the students would go home, leaving him to the peace of the castle.

These holidays, he decided, he would try harder to sleep.

He had had time to sleep these last two years, since the Dark Lord had been defeated. He had had more time for solitary work with his beloved Potions, without direction either from that dead Lord or his living one.

The sleep had been broken by as many nightmares as ever. The fruits of his work were welcome neither to Albus Dumbledore, nor to St Mungo's, nor to the Department of Mysteries.

The Headmaster explained gently that it might be unfortunate if parents had word that their children's Potions professor concocted poisons in his spare time, when he might better be improving his lesson plans. Severus knew he was not the most sweet-tempered of teachers, and did not regret it; but he also knew his teaching was effective, for the few who could learn, and perhaps taught the others kitchen hygiene. His plans needed no additional work.

St Mungo's administrators expressed their shock that a man who had betrayed the wizarding world for so long should dare to try to win approval by fiddling about with known and sacrosanct recipes. How could anyone be expected to trust them, they asked with unnecessary drama, if he was known to be a Potions source. Severus took a little pleasure in coldly withdrawing his current services. The continuing backlash from the Healers he had supplied some rare potions for had not subsided yet.

The Department of Mysteries disapproved of his developing a prophylactic against any of the compulsion hexes. Just go on making Veritaserum for us and the Aurors and so on, there's a good fellow, and stop trying to upset people. Severus went back to Veritaserum, which, however tedious to make, was less painful for questioned prisoners than most other means of enquiry, as well as a more reliable opener of truth.

Severus had listened to this chorus of self-interest with considerable resentment, and settled for keeping Poppy Pomfrey's cupboards well stocked. Poppy had no objection to trying anything new he came up with. A few other acquaintances – he had few friends, and most of those were here, however he hated the place – were glad to be supplied, though those in Britain admitted they had to be cautious in using anything he had developed.

He also persisted with his experiments, knowing that a few independent-minded Healers and Ministry employees would test the end products out when he was satisfied they would help, not harm, and give him some crude feedback about their efficacy.

He wondered if death were the only way out of this closed circle of remorse and inability to redeem his past by contributing to the present.

It would be a defeat, but it might be an end.

Wizards, however, had no more information than Muggles about what happened after death. Severus feared he might choose to become a ghost rather than confirm that there was indeed a judgement to come, when he was not permitted to earn his way free of it save by teaching other people's ill-conditioned brats a subject they did not want to study and were in general incompetent to learn. Even existence as a ghost might be preferable to what he had now.

On the other hand, he could find himself haunting Hogwarts. There might be a certain grim pleasure in it for a little while, but Severus had had quite enough of being powerless. He did not need the absolute loss of power that came with being one of the ghostly dead.

Perhaps, as well as trying to learn to sleep properly, he should leave the castle this summer, rent some country cottage with a good kitchen, and experiment in true peace, without Albus twinkling at him over every meal.

* * * *

After the students left Severus did not follow up his tentative plan to get away, though he took long walks in the Forbidden Forest in the early morning and evening twilight, gathering potions ingredients. It was peaceful there, and he had an accommodation with the centaurs and the remaining werewolves.

During the day he worked steadily at rebuilding Poppy's stocks, as well as his own. At night, when the dreams forced him out of sleep and he could not face returning to all the ghosts that inhabited his head, whimpering and screaming, or the equally nightmarish hours asking himself what alternatives he could have chosen, he read, catching up on all the publications he had had to set aside during term time.

Albus apparently decided this wasn't good enough.

He said over breakfast, "Perhaps, Severus my boy, you need a real holiday, to leave Hogwarts for a while, to freshen up your spirit for the next year."

Severus wondered cynically what Albus wanted, and thought it would be nice not to be reminded that students, like the seasons, always returned to haunt him.

The Headmaster continued, "It might encourage you, to visit some of your former students who have done well. Take a little tour."

Like Phoebe Darrell, in her grave outside York, who had refused to brew potions for the Dark Lord. Everard Lightfoot, who had agreed, and had been tortured to death by an Auror who suspected those potions had murdered his family. Kester Lewthwaite, a consummate Slytherin, who might be running a successful family business in Diagon Alley, but who had joined the Death Eaters and died in the assault on St Mungo's.

Certainly Severus could take a tour. Graveyards, or memorial stones, were so cheering.

Albus had other ideas, reminding him of some of the survivors.

"Judith Crowley has a good position at the John Dee in Edinburgh. It's not St Mungo's, but it's well thought of. She was one of your earliest students, and one of your most promising. How long since you've seen her? She might have interesting ideas and experiences to share."

That was a relatively cunningly-laid bait. He hadn't seen Judith for about ten years, when she had been far more junior, and she had always done fine work.

"Or Chris Manning; he's in Birmingham, doing some interesting work on newspaper production." Albus reproved Severus's quick grimace with, "It's essentially Potions work, Severus: Applied Potions."

Severus supposed that was true, since Chris was working on paper composition, and variations in inks. He still wrote occasionally, apologetically seeking advice on some arcane issue.

"Then Evadne Sumter runs her own business in Cardiff. It involves more than Potions work, of course, but I'm sure you'd find it fascinating, seeing how what you taught them all can be used in different fields."

Did Severus see a theme here? Judith and Evadne were unmarried, and Chris was gay. Was Albus suggesting that a little sex on the side would quell his Potions master's perceived restlessness, enable him to settle back down in his harness?

As an experiment Severus said thoughtfully, "There's Miss Granger, too, an excellent student." He could not be comfortable saying 'Hermione'; he had not seen her since she had left school, and in his eyes was still his student, and quite untouchable.

He did not mention Draco Malfoy who, though not as good a student, could have become a respectable Potions Master. Draco was carefully not using anything he had learned at school, avoiding controversy and the Ministry’s suspicious supervision as far as possible, keeping his slowly-healing father company, and striving to restore their estate and remaining businesses to prosperity. Albus never liked it when Severus slipped off quietly to visit the Malfoys, though he always seemed to know. Draco was not gay, as he made clear despite his heavy workload.

Albus pursed his lips, but the twinkle determinedly maintained itself.

"A little young, perhaps, Severus."

Right on the money.

Then Albus obscured the outcome by adding, "She has some promising plans, I understand, but has hardly had a chance to achieve much. But by all means go to see her too; I'm sure she would welcome a little guidance from you."

'Certainly,' Severus thought with curling lip. He hastily replaced that with an expression of bored indifference, even as he thought, 'A strong-minded young Gryffindor who knows her worth very well, a worth I never could acknowledge; of course she'd be pleased to see me.'

What was certain was that Albus would push this or another plan designed to get him out of the Headmaster's hair and bring him back docile before the end of summer. Severus had better go, somewhere, to avoid being persecuted with all the rigour of Albus Dumbledore's oppressive goodwill.

* * * *

He should never have gone to see Judith. He might have been able to continue thinking of her as a free Potions Master, happy and respected in her calling. She was certainly happy and respected, but her love of order had overtaken her love of experiment, and she contentedly maintained the flawless production of high quality potions for her hospital, without once thinking of how she might improve any, or create new.

She was no more interested in having sex with a stranger from her past than he was, but he had never taken that idea seriously, except as an indicator of the depth of Albus's concern for his own plans.

The visit to Chris was much happier. Chris had a partner, and a faithful temperament, and an enormous enthusiasm for the work he was doing for an employer who trusted him. The three of them spent a weekend talking, making visits to Chris's office and workroom at odd hours whenever Chris needed to demonstrate some practical matter. Severus was startled to be invited to meet Chris's employer to present some of the ideas he had come up with, discussing future developments as well as present problems. That took up another two days, and Severus enjoyed them even more.

He particularly relished discovering that someone who knew nothing of him save his wartime reputation would not only listen to him, but valued his ideas, not writing them off because of who and what he was, and intended to allow his employee to implement them. It was also good to know that Chris was not just happy but growing; he wished he thought more of his Slytherins were.

So. One week down. Did he want to visit Evadne, one of the rare good Slytherins, someone who used Slytherin principles to build up rather than tear down? He had not seen her in over seven years, and hesitated to find out what changes the war years and time and having her own way had made in her.

It might be more productive to follow up his own unmeant suggestion of going to visit Hermione Granger. She could remind him of how well he had earned the hatred not only of the wizarding world but also of several generations of students, even the good ones, when they were not Slytherins. Or Ravenclaws, he admitted to himself; they were easy enough to tolerate, when their interest was in Potions.

It took a little while to find out where she was. In the end it was Ross Holly – whom he knew to be gainfully employed but not very happy in it – who told him. Ross had that Ravenclaw brilliance, but a regrettable Gryffindor devotion to duty, doing his unpalatable job to support the sisters who had suffered because of the Dark Lord.

Severus told himself it was time he stopped thinking that kind of thing. There was no need to pretend to be a Death Eater any more, no need to take on protective coloration in attitudes uncomfortably close to those a deprived, unloved, resentful student had felt from his earliest days at Hogwarts and was still inclined to feel. He was supposed to be grown up now, even if he hadn't had much opportunity to grow in a well-rounded way. His lips twisted slightly at the image the words evoked. He knew how thin he was, despite the muscle in body and limbs that sheer self-preservation had required him to maintain.

Merlin. So Hermione Granger and Harry Potter had bought a warehouse in a still-poor area of London's Muggle East End with a view to making a joint living in the development of Potions and Charms. Not in Limehouse, despite the Chinese-sounding name they had chosen for their enterprise. PearlGate. Some private joke of Potter's, perhaps. In his later years at school, and certainly during the war itself, Potter had revealed an excellent grasp of charms, and not just practical, either. Miss Granger had rather earlier revealed her own broad-ranging skills; the curse she had laid on anyone who betrayed their little student army still amused him.

In the meantime, they were making rare and experimental potions on commission, using guaranteed pure materials, most of the plants from their own greenhouse on their roof. He hoped they kept the Disillusionment Charm up properly. No, of course they did. Both had extensive experience of precautions and protections.

How significant was it that they lived alone in the warehouse, together? Ross had said they were not a couple, but they were well-trained in evasion, too, and valued privacy. That, Severus told himself, was no concern of his.

He supposed Miss Granger would be willing to speak to him. Mr Potter might not, though they had been easy enough with each other, in a war comrade kind of way, during the last couple of terms of Potter's schooling.

* * * *

He found that Ross Holly had been before him. His polite Floo call to the address Ross gave him found Harry Potter answering. Severus grimly ignored the ache in his knees and his neck as he peered through the flames at a young man in unabashedly Muggle clothing which revealed a solider body than he remembered, who had a wooden spoon in his hand. He wasn't wearing his glasses. Remedying vision was extremely difficult; what had the boy done?

"Professor Snape!" Potter said, quite cheerfully. "Ross said you were in town. Did you want to speak with Hermione? She'd need to call you back, I'm sorry; she's knee-deep in a potion she can't leave."

Severus Snape heard himself saying, "I wondered if I might visit your establishment."

He added, as fair warning of complications, "Professor Dumbledore thought I should go to see how some of my former students were getting on."

That was definitely amusement on Potter's face.

"By all means. Come to lunch, and stay a while, if you don't mind talking with one or other of us while we work."

Potter added tentatively, "We could give you a bed for the night, if you liked; it can't be very comfortable where you are."

Ross had even told them where their former teacher was putting up. He had indeed chosen it to save money, but he did not set great store by elaborate hired accommodation; somewhere quiet and clean to try to sleep would suffice. Security he could attend to himself, and did, no matter where he was.

Potter must have seen him swithering. He retained that perception he had so painfully and belatedly acquired.

More confidently he offered a real invitation. "Pack your bags, come and stay a few days. Ross told you we have plenty of room? And we do have a decent spare bed. You'd have the entire first floor to yourself."

"Thank you."

Severus was still not sure, an hour later, as he paid his bill, why he had accepted.

* * * *

He took care to arrive at a considerate time: well before lunch, but not so early they should need to offer him other refreshments, or leave their work to do the pretty. Potter stood back from their fireplace, a hand ready to aid him if he stumbled, but the polished broad wooden boards were smooth under his feet.

Severus set his bag down – he had not bothered to shrink it, he always travelled light – and looked around quickly. Their kitchen.

He could not help saying disapprovingly, "Is this the Floo address you give everyone, in the heart of your home?"

Potter grinned at him in that irritating way he would probably never forget.

"We opened it for you; it's not usually available for travel for anyone except ourselves, though it's the most convenient for Floo talking."

That was better. He supposed there had to be some balance between security and convenience; Hogwarts leaned one way and most of the wizarding world the other.

Potter added, "Apparition is only possible with our conscious approval, and to a specific, warded, place."

Yes, they too, or Potter at least, were still on a war footing. Good.

"You're happy to wait until lunchtime to eat? Would you like a cool drink?"

It was a hot summer in the streets around Diagon Alley; Severus accepted a glass of pumpkin juice, and Potter poured himself one as well.

Potter showed him to a comfortable looking bed in a corner marked off by one half-wall and a curtain, with a view over the streets one storey below. He quickly showed Severus the amenities, including the old goods lift and the hair-raising circular iron staircase to the ground floor, before leading him up a much more handsome set of stairs. Severus brushed the polished wood banister approvingly. Housekeeping was not one of his interests outside Potions requirements, but he liked the way the handsome old wood showed.

"We slide down it; that helps to keep it polished."

Severus rolled his eyes. Once a student, always a student, evidently. Though that sounded a very practical approach.

Glasses in hand, they went up the stairs. As they passed each floor Potter outlined its use, but he did not offer to take Severus to Miss Granger's workroom. No doubt she was working, as the boy should be.

Then he found out what Potter was doing. On the roof, under its sheets of magically reinforced and supported glass, was the nursery Ross Holly had spoken of. A very respectable achievement for less than two summers' work. Potter tossed back the last of his drink then pulled on a canvas apron and fine but sturdy leather gloves.

Potter showed him the most interesting plants in the nursery, but as he went he used the various tools in the belt slung round his waist, clipping delicately here, nipping there.

"I've harvested the mandrakes," Potter said, "so there's nothing to be concerned about at present; later there'll be other hazards, but not just now."

He paused to adjust some Muggle instrument that seemed to direct water spray from above.

Severus realised that Potter ran this nursery, which promised with further development to be a Potions Master's resource as well as a Herbologist's working garden.

"I thought you were working on Charms development, or studying, at least?"

"I can think anywhere, and I might as well use my hands while I do it," Potter said, which suggested the war had done nothing but refine his ability to concentrate. He added, "I bought one of those quills you can dictate to, you know? Its writing is much better than mine; well worth its price."

Severus accompanied him as he did what was obviously an accustomed round; the quiet, the steadiness, the green smells were calming, and up here neither the Muggles nor their noisy business nor their transport imposed on his senses.

Later they sat for a little while in a comfortable corner, both watching three small red and white goldfish appear and disappear from under the leaves and single flower of a white water lily in a big yellow glazed bowl. That was hypnotically calming; he wondered that Healers didn't keep that kind of thing around.

Severus asked, "The Muggles don't bother you?"

Potter shrugged, "Like us, they're busy people. Of course they gossip, but there's nothing to gossip about here. Just a struggling young business, they know what that's like, though they don't know what we do."

He smiled. "I take our lawyer and a few other locals we've come to know the occasional present from the garden: salsify, just now; it's not easy to grow in the English climate without a greenhouse. It was strawberries earlier, and it'll be raspberries later. I grow more than we can use ourselves, and the goodwill is handy."

Severus nodded thoughtfully. Potter was carefully working the pair of them into the community, for added protection. Obviously they both understood how to manage Muggles, which was surprising now he knew what he did of Potter's desolate upbringing, even worse than his own. Perhaps Potter did not blame all of them for what his relatives had done, even though no one had ever tried to control them.

They lunched not in the kitchen, but at a long table set across a broad window looking over the street.

Miss Granger had been astonishingly pleased to see him, though after a blush or two she had contained it. He found himself very aware of her. Still only of medium height, still with self-willed curls flowing down her back, but a young woman, not a girl. That was more evident in attitude than in any physical change. She dressed plainly, and in Muggle clothing, like Potter, though much more conservatively than most of the people of her age he could see from their lunch table.

After lunch Potter retreated to his study and Miss Granger – whom he was now striving to call by her first name – took him to her workrooms and showed him round. She was right to be proud of them: clean, well-maintained, excellently designed, and sturdily constructed. That was the more obvious in that all the rooms in this building were created within the shell of space, rather than between existing walls. He discovered Potter had done most of the building work, and between them they were responsible for the design. A couple of parts of her preparation room could have been lifted from his; others were improvements he would long have been pleased to have.

Her workroom was what he could have made his, if it had not been set in form generations ago. Potions work did not change, a great deal, but wizards had acquired some conveniences from restless Muggle inventiveness. He particularly liked the tall-standing taps she could turn on and off without using her hands. He envied her having a sink everywhere one might be useful instead of in a single, somehow uniformly inconvenient, spot. The ceramic plates set into the worktables, on which she rested her cauldrons, were good: table surfaces roughened by burns inevitably caused spills. He also liked the clear, even lighting, and the silk scarf she tied firmly over her hair, offering him one too.

"Does Potter wear one of these, or does he not work with you here?"

He fingered the tight weave, wondering how useful it was.

"He wears it, just as he wears a mask, when necessary. We don't want our lungs damaged, or our eyes, by noxious vapours, and I see no need to ruin our hair either."

She added, "Muggle take much more stringent precautions when they're dealing with hazardous materials, but together we've worked up some reinforcing charms on the headscarves, and made the masks comfortable instead of desperately awkward, which is why so many Muggles hate wearing them."

That was a point, he acknowledged. He had washed his hair scrupulously this morning, having spent yesterday in Ross's large work area, naturally helping him, to be clean and tidy for this visit. He usually managed to keep his hair in a better state in the summers; in term time it invariably came to be too much like hard work, more extra trouble than he could be bothered to take. Miss Granger seemed to have decided on a policy, and to be sticking to it, even if its source was partly personal vanity that a man like him did not need to care about.

He wondered if her preventative measures were easier than the inadequate remedial measures he took, and remembered that Judith, Chris and Ross all took similar precautions. Perhaps he should discuss this with her. It might be something he should teach his students, along with hygiene and proper preparation procedures, which they could apply anywhere.

Right now, however, he was more interested in her current project.

They talked all afternoon, but tinkered with the actual potion very little, concentrating on making notes and exchanging parchments, after he had subjected her records to exhaustive and generally approving review. That approval surprised her.

He sympathised with her difficulties in getting approval for a full range of experiments. If he had not been working for both Albus Dumbledore and Voldemort, he would have faced similar difficulties. His masters had been more interested in results than in supervising his processes, or criticising his use of materials, either. Even so, many of his experiments had been clandestine.

* * * *

That night Potter took what seemed a real interest in the outcome of their afternoon's discussions, and later presented Severus with a problem of his own, apologetic as he seldom was, disclaiming any wish to take advantage of his good will.

The notion that he might be thought to have good will towards anyone made Severus smile derisively, but Potter's dilemma sounded interesting, so he brushed the apology aside firmly and plunged in. Hermione listened contentedly and very occasionally made a point. He did not need to talk about foolish wand-waving here; both of them appreciated the importance of potions. Charms had their place, and it was exhilarating to discuss a point of principle as he seldom could except with Filius or Minerva.

By the time they had a tentative solution in place, each was pleased with the other, and Hermione seemed pleased with both.

They went to bed late. Hermione told him that if he drew the curtains across his window, and the thick black curtain of his fourth wall, the early sun should not wake him, and that the noise from the street would not penetrate the window glass. Potter gave him the details of the charm, based on a standard privacy charm, saying that the particular application was his own. Severus thought he could use it to gain a little peace from his Slytherins, who could be as noisy as any other Hogwarts students, while still able to observe them; Potter offered it to him unasked.

Severus said, "You shouldn't be open-handed; charms development is your livelihood."

Potter shrugged. "The basis is public domain." Hastily he added, to clear Severus's frown of puzzlement, "Anyone can use it. The twiddle on it I did, anyone could."

"If they took the trouble, and adjusted it, and built into it the capacity to adjust it to other situations. Get into the habit of charging, Potter, and charge high, so that people value your work."

Potter asked dryly, "As you do?"

He shrugged. "Money isn't very important, and that's all I'm given. It's different for you; you're trying to build, here."

Hermione put in decidedly, "You should be given respect, and gratitude. Does no one?"

He shrugged again. "Some Healers at St Mungo's and the Dee are definitely grateful, and recommend others to come to me for help, but since I have to deal with them through the hospital administrators that makes little difference."

"You don't have to go on doing so." She leaned forward, her brown eyes brilliant.

"I don't, now; I told them –" A little ashamed of the emotion he had brought to that confrontation, he revealed, "I told them to take their contracts and burn them on the end of their wands, and then where to put the wands."

Potter laughed, though Hermione tried to look prim.

"I meant," she explained, "that you need a different sort of contract. Like the ones we have. Most St Mungo's Healers have to have the hospital pay for what they need, of course, and approve its development. Our lawyer explained, though, how very important it was for us not to make contracts with anyone but the Healers. They could then do all the bargaining and accounting with their administrators themselves, instead of dumping it on us."

"On you," Potter put in.

"Yes, well, that's what we do. It means I can concentrate on work, not paperwork. If a Healer wants something from me, he or she has to pay for it personally in some way. It means they have to really want something, not just to fancy how nice it might be to have it, and lose interest part way through."

Severus contemplated that. Then he asked, "Would you introduce me to your lawyer? Some Healers would be happy for me to continue working up what they want, even on those terms, I believe. I swore I would never deal with those _office workers_ again."

Hermione warned, "He's a Muggle."

He stared. "You've told a Muggle –"

That breach of security was breathtaking.

"No, no." She was shaking her head, understanding fully. "Harry would never let me do that, even if I was so careless as to think of doing it. No. Mr Howard's grandmother is a Squib. She married out, and none of her children or grandchildren has magic, but she told them about the wizarding world, and swore them to secrecy. I don't know how my father found out – maybe he didn't, perhaps it was just luck Daddy chose to send us to him – but he knows very well magic exists. He doesn’t ask rude questions, and we've given him no details."

Potter put in, "The contracts say nothing of magic, or potions, or specific ingredients. Reproduced on paper instead of parchment, they could be shown in any Muggle court or ministry and rouse no curiosity. You wouldn't need to see Mr Howard, if you didn't want to; we could copy a blank contract for you to use. He might have some useful suggestions, though. You, after all, are an established Potions Master of great, and widely-known, skill. He might help you to make a better bargain, or terms that suit you better than ours would."

He scowled. "Don't mock, boy."

Potter stared. Then he said, "How completely are you immersed in teaching at Hogwarts that you don't know that? Have you never dealt except through administrators?"

Severus muttered, "The Dark Lord agreed developing potions for Healers made a good secondary cover for my working for him, but if he had changed his mind – I couldn't risk exposing them to danger. He might have decided to dispose of them to erase all knowledge of what I did."

"And I suppose Professor Dumbledore didn't want you to deal with them directly either?" Potter challenged.

"He didn't like my doing Potions development for anyone else but him and, of course, the Dark Lord. He said I should concentrate on my duties as a spy and as a teacher. So no, he never gave me any help with that either."

What a relief to be able to say that, to acknowledge that Albus had never given him anything that did not support his own aims.

Hermione said with alarming briskness, "All that can stop, now. While you're here in London, why don't you take the initiative away from them? Make contracts on a new, more equitable basis, to do the things you do best? You're not a spy now; you have no duties, beyond teaching, except to yourself."

He sank back in his armchair, the enthusiasm they had whipped up deflating.

"I owe too many debts. I've done too much, allowed too much, for it to be right to take what I want just for myself."

Hermione evidently planned to argue that, but Potter reached out to touch her hand, and she fell silent.

Potter said calmly, "There's no harm in exploring it, though. After all, those Healers want your services back, and you owe the administrators no favours. It's hardly self-indulgence to go back to creating special potions for hospital use."

The boy should have been in Slytherin. As if that was a new thought. As usual, however, what he said made sense from a Slytherin point of view as well as a Gryffindor's.

"I'll think about it. Thank you." He rose. "You both have work to do in the morning, I mustn't keep you up all night."

He wouldn't get much sleep, despite their kindly precautions for the comfort of their guests, but with them sleeping two floors higher at least he wouldn't disturb them. They had given him something to consider while he lay awake, holding back the nightmares.

* * * *

Hermione invited him to go to her workroom while she tidied up the kitchen; he decided that since he was a guest perhaps that was acceptable. He would certainly get in her way, though he ought to learn where things went. He appreciated order, as they seemed to.

He wandered about, cataloguing excellences, wondering what had recently hung on the picture-hook above her workbench. He allowed his interest its way; whatever it was could hardly endanger him, and if it was some kind of work plan, she should not be shy about his seeing it. He fingered his wand and murmured the finding charm. That led him to the lowest, deepest drawer in a narrow set that he knew she stored parchments in.

He squatted, still faintly tickled by a feeling he should not invade her privacy. Habit, however, the need to know whatever others wished to conceal from him, was too strong. That went right back not just to his days as a Death Eater but also to the insecurities of his earliest remembered childhood.

The thing was a photograph frame, and when he turned it over vestigial good manners were swamped by a wave of rabid anger, then another of ravening curiosity.

Himself. In his classroom. Not looking at the camera – he would never have permitted a photographer there – but at the work of his students. A minatory scowl for one, a word of brief approval for another, then a smoothly threatening, "If you continue to stir, Miss Weasley, it will burn your hand." That class. So the approval had probably been for Finuala Walsh, a model student: excellent at Potions work, Slytherin, unfailingly courteous and attentive, and pure-blood. He had seen her again in Edinburgh.

The photographer must have been Mr Creevey, that irritating, obsessive, ingenious, and now dead Gryffindor, who had gone to his death using his camera to great effect for Dumbledore. Some of the later trials had resulted in convictions largely because of the pictures Colin Creevey had taken.

His wrath began to subside. No wonder she had hidden the photograph; he did not appreciate having his own privacy invaded. But why had she had it on her wall in the first place?

He poked through the drawer and was not surprised to find other photographs. What did surprise him was their number, and the order in which they were kept. Mr Creevey must have been at it for months, to get those sequences. It was seldom Severus demonstrated, especially for students in the higher classes. Had she wanted some kind of aide-mémoire? That might make sense. But why have one of the pictures enlarged, why hang it where she would see it as she worked, where it could have talked to her, had he been aware of being photographed? She might guess that, had he been aware, the frame would have been obstinately empty when she could see it.

He was still sitting on his heels, the frame in his lap, brushing through a set showing the fine detail of making, he could tell, Dreamless Sleep, when she came in. A pity it wasn't safe to use the stuff on himself.

He did not feel apologetic, and attacked at once.

"What is this, Miss Granger?"

Not phrased carefully enough. She answered with something of Potter's impudence, "A photograph, Professor."

He hissed, and put it back in the drawer, slamming it shut, then rose to his feet without using his hands, so he could stride closer and loom over her.

She didn't back away from that, either; probably she was used to people looming over her, even if they seldom had his expression on their faces.

Her own flash of temper subsided. She said carefully, "You've found the photo sets, so you know why I had them taken."

"An invaluable record of flawless preparation techniques," he agreed, choosing silky sarcasm that should have annihilated her.

"Yes," she answered seriously. "They're like a textbook."

"And that, of course, is why one was enlarged, framed, and hung on the wall – that I might supervise your work?"

There was a faint pink colour in her cheeks, now, but it had been hinted at before.

"It reminded me."

He snorted. He did not have to say she would not need a reminder.

He did say, unkindly, "If you wanted a photograph of a Potions Master, you should have one of Ross Holly; at least he's good-looking, and closer to your age."

The temper came slamming back, and the words came out, irrevocable, defiant. "I'm not in love with Ross."

He tried to cover his astonished silence with, "I do not appreciate mockery, Miss Granger, as you are well aware. Even if I cannot now punish it. I had not expected discourtesy from you."

Having said something she had not meant to say, but could not back away from, she went forward.

"You may not want it, but you can't stop it. Not discourtesy. Love. I hadn't meant you to know, that's why I put the photo away. I knew you wouldn't want it."

He refused to take ownership of the words that issued from his mouth. "How can you know that?"

They stared at each other, finally both confused to silence.

She alarmed him by stepping closer.

"If you do want it," she said, pink no longer, "you can ask. And be given."

"No."

Her expression changed, then changed again as he went on, suddenly anxious not to hurt her, but to ensure she understood it was too late for him, "After the things I have done, what I have been, I can't ask that. I long ago lost any chance of deserving anyone's love."

"Who said anything about deserving?"

That certainly sounded like Hermione Granger, tart, without being offensive.

He needed to explain how necessary it was she should forget this childish whim he would not have expected of her. She was no wide-eyed chit, empty-headed but for silly dreams. That would probably hurt her, but she must face facts she should already be well aware of, and draw the logical conclusions, as was appropriate for her nature.

He was going to have to tell her why he was not entitled to love, before she found out, and withdrew it. Taking Slytherin advantage did not generally work with a Gryffindor for long, and would not, with her.

Better a small hurt for both of them now than a deeper one later, if she went on with this folly.

"You may have been spared the details, in view of your youth and sex," he said coldly, the only way he could talk about this. "But you know I continued to be a Death Eater until the day the Dark Lord was defeated. You should be able to imagine some at least of the things I did to sustain that role."

He flung the words at her like stones. "Murder. Not just of Aurors pursuing us. Of wizards who would not support us. Of Muggles, for no reason but sport. Of Muggle-borns, to express our hatred and contempt and fear, though no one admitted that. Interrogation, with violence or with potions that destroyed as surely. Torture and rape of prisoners, whether for information or for pleasure. Not just those who had offended us, or would have, given the chance, or could. Women, children, too. Anything that forced obedience from the reluctant, created terror, or even a moment of hesitation, in the opposed or uncertain."

She was breathing as harshly as he, but she interrupted. "You say 'us' and 'our'. But you were not his. That ended long ago. You did all that not for itself, but for the rest of us, because the Headmaster asked you. Because you were placed to spy for him, for us, as no one else was."

"My motives made no difference to those who suffered."

That was the real bitterness. That, and remembering the constant calculation of what it might be safe to do to end or alleviate suffering, especially since the answer had come out more and more strongly, 'Nothing'.

"No," she agreed steadily. "You could not help them and you could never have helped them. You could have died with them, of course, as unpleasantly. It might have made you feel better, briefly, if you were distressed enough, to declare against him. Where would that have left the wizarding world? Professor Dumbledore might have found another spy –"

"He did," Severus snapped, "though of course I never knew who they were."

"Did you ever find out?"

He nodded, seeing where she was going, but allowing her to get there.

"And could any one truly have replaced you? Given the same information to those who opposed him, the same warnings, weakened the right potions where possible, denied the availability of Veritaserum – I've seen you do that, remember? – offered the misinformation that would be accepted?"

"No. It makes no difference. Being a spy in some wars might not be so bad, perhaps, but in that war – Miss Granger, if there is a hell, I am bound for it. Once I gave myself to him, there was no way back. There was only the chance to keep others free. No matter how many I was able to save, there were far too many I helped to destroy, or failed to help, because it would have risked my life, my position."

She persisted. "You made a very bad mistake. You realised that, and did your best to mend it; you left him. If the Headmaster had not asked you to spy for him, and you felt so guilty it seemed the only thing to do, would you ever again have done more than give students detention?"

She shook her head. "You've been paying ever since, and Professor Dumbledore has allowed you, encouraged you, maybe, to believe you owed it. Certainly he let you think you owed him."

"I did! Where else could I have sheltered? Who else would have been able to protect a former Death Eater?"

Tartly she said, "He got his money's worth. Teacher, spy, maker of potions to order. And a load of guilt to drive you to do whatever he wanted even after the war was over, won, the accounts ruled off with all debts paid."

"You should not love someone like me." They could argue about repentance and repayment for ever, but that was not what was important.

"Like you? A man who understands he has done wrong and works tirelessly to correct it, risking his life and sanity in the doing? A master wizard who should be creating potions, rather than teaching basics to children whose ignorance and lack of interest he can't deal with? A man who, disliking children, takes unlimited pains for those placed in his particular care?"

"Much care I took for you," he snapped.

"You were on display the whole time; because you were a good spy you could not be a good teacher. You took care enough for Harry, however sincerely you hated him then, over and over, and for me when it was needed. The only children it was safe for you to take proper care of were your Slytherins. I've come to see they certainly needed someone's care. They had it from no one but their Head of House."

Wearily he replied, "So many of them children of Death Eaters, how else could I act?"

Perhaps she intended to talk him to death. She was as bad as Lucius, but at least Lucius seldom tried for altruism.

She shifted her approach, perhaps seeing, as he did, that they were exchanging opinions, not convincing each other.

She looked him in the eye. "I don't particularly want to hear your war stories, Severus; they would be almost as dreadful to me as they are to you. But if you want to talk about that time I will listen. And I will love you, and go on loving you."

Deliberately she added, "You could love me, if you let yourself."

How did she know that? Did she know how true it was, and how sickening he found it, that someone like him should even wish to love a brave clean creature like her?

Was this why he had been pleased to be calling her by her given name, while he went on saying 'Potter', rather than 'Harry' as invited? He should have noticed, and realised not just that it was a mistake, but what it meant. Perhaps she had noticed, and understood. He had been careless, but he could hope it was not too late. He would just have to go on saying no. Potter might help to persuade her of her recklessness. If he could bring himself to speak of any of this.

He closed his eyes, trying to find his balance, wearied beyond speech by this incredible attack, something he had never expected.

Then she found yet another means of attack.

Her hands slid beneath his robes and locked behind his back; she rocked her body gently against him, with immediate effect; and because her mouth could not reach his she set it to his neck instead, just above the close-fastened collar of his robes.

He wondered if he had whimpered, then decided, no; it had been a groan. Bad enough. Her hands slid further up, still pulling him hard against her, while his hung taut at his sides. If he touched her, he might not push her away.

Her warm breath against his throat as she whispered his name was another attack, another incitement to surrender. Perhaps he should have listened to Albus; it had been so long, and he was vulnerable as any needy creature was.

"You do want this," she whispered. "Let go. Forget it all."

He could do that, if she gave him enough. For the little, little while, and a short time after that.

And just maybe it would shut her up, as nothing else could.

He bent his head and lifted his hands to touch her.

She made an impatient sound and brought her hands out from under his robes. He missed their smoothness on his shoulder blades, in the hollow of his spine, caressing even while they gripped, but he had little time to regret the loss. First she freed the top few buttons of his robes, then, while one hand slid inside, the other came up behind his head and pulled him down so she could reach his mouth. He had limited himself to exploring her narrow back, her firm waist, the surprisingly lush hips, hardly pressing at all, but feeling her through her thin summer clothing with a vividness that captured his attention.

Now her mouth on his and her hand moving over his chest distracted him from the feel of her body; his hands fastened on her hips, drawing her against him.

He could imagine as much as feel the heat of her as she allowed it, parting her thighs and pressing closer. He could feel the softness of her breasts, and the increasing tautness of her nipples, even through his robes. Perhaps he imagined that, but it seemed real. Her mouth opened over his, then she nipped his lower lip.

Did she think he was a standing stone, able to bear all this without wanting more? Everything she was doing convinced him she wanted this, though she made no attempt to encourage him directly; she did not touch his cock. She did not need to. He wanted to rub himself between her legs, heating himself and her. He wanted inside her mouth. He wanted to strip off that thin blouse and handle her breasts, moulding them, seeing how tight he could make her nipples, seeing them change colour, flushing with blood.

He settled for tightening his grip and using his tongue to suggest she part her lips further for him.

She murmured something into his mouth. He hummed against her lips, then began to explore the depths, not caring what she wanted to say so long as it was not 'No,' or 'Stop.'

One of her hands was curling and uncurling on the back of his neck, tangling in his hair, the fingers sliding up to his scalp, pressing. Like a contented cat. Her other hand was trying to open his robes further. She wasn't getting on very well there, and he wanted her touching his flesh, able to explore below the level of his collarbones, though her fingertips dipping into the hollows there and in his throat felt delightful.

It was increasingly frustrating, pressing his rising cock into her belly instead of where it belonged.

Something had to be done. He forced himself to shift his hold, gripping beneath her arse, lifting her, moving the few steps necessary, to set her on her work table, fortunately still free of cauldron and potion ingredients.

That was better. He edged between her opened thighs, pulling her into him, and pressed directly into that marvellous heat, rubbing against her.

One of his hands could hold her there while the other helped her with buttons, much more skilful at the task than she, even though it had been a long time.

Still kissing eagerly she shifted her hands to his chest, exploring skin, finding the small patch of hair between his nipples, fingertips brushing through it, maddening him, before her hands separated further, one to each nipple. His breath caught as she took hold between finger and thumb, gently, but without hesitation, rubbing, squeezing. He thrust his tongue deep into her mouth, capturing hers, to signify his approval.

Now she could make her way wherever she liked within his robes, so he could wind his freed hand in her hair, holding her head in place, tilted back to just the right angle.

After a while she pulled free, gasping for breath. He let her, not sorry to breathe unimpeded himself for a moment, then took the opportunity to use his mouth to tell her what more he wanted.

"Wrap your legs around me, hold me."

She did that, while he went back to kissing, this time the vulnerable arch of her throat, wanting to hear her. She made soft little gasping sounds, while her feet moved, bumping distractingly against his thighs. He realised she was toeing off those heavy Muggle shoes with their fancy shaping and different coloured strips of leather and cloth. One dropped, then the other, then one of her heels was digging into him, just above his arse. She wrapped her other leg around his thighs, using it to pull him even closer.

Much better. Would she let him take off her blouse? She wore nothing under it, but he wanted to feel her breasts perfectly, not shrouded in cloth.

He bit the side of her neck gently, then slid his mouth over the tender skin, pausing to lick the pulse, before he tried to push into the opening of her blouse. One of her hands came round to help him, unfastening her own buttons much more easily than she had his.

He wasn't sure what sounded the alarm. At first he ignored it, content as he had not been for a long time, hands and mouth working busily, showing her what he wanted, being given it generously, finding out what she liked, giving that in turn, looking forward to the glorious burst of sensation her body promised.

At last he realised. She learned fast, she wanted to please him, but there were some things she was not doing. He had not pressured her, enjoying the slow build of sensation, not yet wishing to hurry, or not so much that he had no other alternative. He had been misled because she wasn't afraid, she was curious, she was enjoying this as much as he was. He had thought her curious about him specifically, as her interest seemed to be. But unlike him, she hadn't done this before, not, at least, what they were coming to, and in spite of her willingness she didn't fully know what she was doing.

The alarm bells rang frantically. Everything bade him stop. His responsibility as her teacher that still hung round him like a ghost of the past. The caution that had through all those years of doubling kept his sexual interactions to a minimum, or at least limited him to people whom he knew would not use what they did together against him, whether he trusted them or not, whether they were true allies or not. Even a faint awareness that to rush now could ruin what he might yet have.

Severus closed his eyes even more tightly and wondered how much more damned he would be if he took an ignorant virgin at her word.

She sensed the change.

"What is it?" she whispered against his throat, no longer kissing and licking.

It would be so easy to go on. No.

"Stop, Hermione. Before it's too late."

He lifted his head, used his hold on her to move back from her a little, though he could not bear to separate fully from the sweet promise, not yet.

"Too late for what?"

She couldn't be that ignorant.

A little impatient now, he said, "I want to lay you down on the bench, take off the last of your clothes, and have you."

"And I want you to." She scowled at him. "What's stopping you?"

"You haven't done this before."

She looked relieved. "Is that all? Everyone has to start sometime."

Her logic would be the death of him.

"Not necessarily with me."

She took a deep breath, then she demanded, "Severus Snape, are you having a crisis of conscience now? Why? You must see –" she blushed very faintly, "you must see I want that too."

"You don't know what you're doing."

That ready temper escaped, so surprising a contrast to her business-like manner dealing with potions and planning and wizarding politics.

She snarled at him, "Teach me, then, if there's something I need to know, if you can't just show me. Tell me what to do."

He took a deep breath and stepped back. Aware of his dishevelled robes hanging off his shoulders, he pulled them up and started buttoning.

"You're stopping for that?"

She shoved her hair back with both hands and made no move to pull her blouse back on, or to fasten her light cotton trousers. She sat there, naked from the hips up, pink breasts and pointed nipples trained on him like a Hit Wizard's wand, her thighs still parted, glaring at him, clutching the bench as if to prevent herself from leaning forward to scratch or slap. On top of everything, she was offended with him.

He might have known it would be a mistake to reach out for what he wanted, even if it was offered to him.

"Yes," he said flatly. "This is not something to rush into."

Some treacherous part of his mind was wishing he had not found out until afterwards, when it would have been too late; he would have had no option but to go forward and do everything he could to please her as well as himself. He had thought he had rooted out all impulse, all recklessness, nearly twenty years ago.

Now he not only had to say no; he had to persuade her to accept it.

She looked at him, clearly controlling her desire to share her opinions with him. He stood her scrutiny unflinching. If he could meet the Dark Lord's eyes, when obliged to, surely he could return her assessing gaze.

At last she said, "Very well. We won't rush."

That wasn't the response he had expected. It didn't sound as if she was going to wrap herself up again and put herself back in the box to wait for someone more suitable. It sounded, in fact, like a warning. At the thought of being ambushed the next time she thought him vulnerable, he nearly closed his eyes. He did tighten his lips to hold in the plea for mercy. There was no such thing, even from a warm-hearted former student who claimed to love him.

He would like to believe that, but she made no secret of her opinion that he had paid his dues and was entitled to his freedom. Now he had to wonder if she was willing to seduce him into taking it, intended as a kindness, but a cruelty she did not understand. She wanted him, but did she love him, after all? Would she use her body to free him, and his to assuage her curiosity, having found no one better? More likely, having found no one willing to leave her and move on. Because he was needy, was she taking advantage of him, thinking, in her ignorance, that it would not matter to him to be used, so long as she gave him fair measure?

Perhaps he should explain that, too, but he felt too sick at heart to do so. He was learning, more and more, how much he wanted what she offered. If she didn't want him as much, it would be worse than useless to take her gift, an apple that would create its own poison in the eating. And yet, and yet, Hermione Granger did not lie…

"You should think carefully what you are doing, what it will mean, and not just for this one time."

He did allow himself to say one thing. "I am not interested in casual liaisons. I suspect you would not be either; you are not that kind of person. I want more than to have you now, Hermione. I want everything you have and are. As I would give you all I am, if you would value that. I don't want to accept less, and don't wish to offer less. So think."

She met his eyes. "I will think. About all of it. But I would like you to promise to think too; not to run away."

"Run away!" He was trying to protect her from the mistakes of ignorance, all the painful mistakes he had made, and she thought he wanted to run?

"I am ignorant, not stupid, Severus. When did I ever do anything lightly? I will keep my promise, but I want yours."

He bent his head slightly. "You have it. I will see you this evening, then."

Not waiting for a response, he turned and left, hastening down the stairs, wishing he could get rid of his hard-on, wishing to be as far from her as possible, as fast as possible, wanting to kill something, wanting a distraction. It would need to be powerful. He couldn't have all those things. He took another shower and brought himself off quickly, detaching himself from the process as best he could, then dressed.

He would go and see Ross. St Mungo's would be bound to offer him something else to think about besides Hermione Granger's soft, warm body and her hard, cool mind, blazingly attractive even to a man who had been offered her body and had refused it against his liking. No. Enough of that.

* * * *

Hermione straightened her clothing and chose a simple task while she conquered her mix of irritation and fear and unsatisfied desire that ached worse than ever, thinking long and hard, as he had said, though not exactly about the topic he had wanted her to consider.

He might be confused; she was not. Perhaps he thought it unfair of her to try to seduce him when he thought himself an inappropriate partner for her, but it was plain he was afraid of much more than that.

Perhaps the best thing would be not to rush him, but not to back off, either. She was confident she wanted him, and not just for immediate pleasure. It was a relief to know that he didn't value that greatly either. Thinking of how desolating it would be to make love with him a few times, then never see him again unless they had business to transact, enabled her to understand what he might fear. There seemed to be a great deal she needed to convince him of, besides her being an adult and knowing her own mind and having thought about what their alliance might require of them both.

So she would be there, she would express her confidence in him and in herself, however hard that might be, and she would even try not to pressure him too much. Patience, courtesy, and persistence. That would get her much further with Severus than crying for what she wanted like a spoilt child, or snatching at it, like a greedy and thoughtless one.

* * * *

Meeting that evening was difficult for both of them.

Hermione had confessed to Harry that she loved Severus and believed he might love her, but that he was both wary and convinced of his unsuitability, as well of his general unworthiness. Harry had not even tried to look surprised.

He helped to keep their talk on a professional level. Without that, Severus might not have spoken at all. Talking about his day with Ross, and the discussions he had had with several Healers, who took his return to the hospital as a signal to re-open negotiations for his services, gradually eased all of them.

Severus had been truly distracted by the discovery that he and his work were valued, and valued enough that even the kind of contract Hermione had with some of their fellows did not frighten them off.

The elderly and eminent Dr Lambourne had brightened considerably when Severus outlined the terms he was prepared to work on.

"A much better idea, Professor Snape! I can handle those fellows in admin, believe me. They should never have run away with the idea that they control research, either mine or that of anyone I commission. Bring on your contract; come on Tuesday, if you would, when I have free time, and we can discuss thoroughly what I would like you to do."

Harry said, on hearing of this, "You'd better go to see Mr Howard. This eminent gentleman sounds as if he might even be equipped to take advantage of you."

Severus sneered on principle, but he suspected there was truth in that.

Hermione left the sitting area and came back with a small slim box which, Severus discovered, provided the Muggle version of fire-talk. Much more comfortable, if it worked, he thought, watching her curl up in her armchair, punching little buttons, then starting to talk into it. He could not hear the rest of the conversation, but she referred a couple of questions to him, then asked if an appointment the following afternoon, Friday, would suit. Severus nodded.

As she set the box aside Hermione said, a trifle smugly, "It usually takes a week to get an appointment with him if you go through his secretaries, but we amuse him, so he made time tomorrow." She added, "I think he might be frightened of his granny still, a bit, too. Do you want one of us to come with you?"

While he would have preferred to avoid being alone with her, he knew he had to conquer that, especially as she was willing to help him to some independence of Albus.

"I would appreciate your assistance," he said coolly.

Hermione asked, "Do you have Muggle clothing you can wear in the street, Severus? We need to take the tube into the City; it's better not to wear robes, and a cloak in this weather would look even odder."

This was something Severus had managed to avoid so far, but if he was to go among Muggles, he had a duty to blend in.

"No," he answered glumly. "I suppose tomorrow I should get some."

"You could transform your robes, model them after Harry's clothing, perhaps, but you might prefer something a bit more formal. He or I can take you shopping; it needn't take long."

Severus looked at Potter's current garb: a soft red cotton tee-shirt and trousers of faded blue, unironed, worn with the shoes so many Muggle-born children wore at school; he knew they were called 'running' shoes, though he seldom saw them run. He didn't fancy the shoes; the shirt was close to immodest; but the trousers might be acceptable, if adults wore them to business appointments. Trying not to give offence, he asked about that.

Potter said placidly, "Everyone wears them these days. Oh, not businessmen, or lawyers in their offices, either, but you won't startle Mr Howard if you wear jeans. Researchers don't have to comply with the same sort of dress rules followed by people who need to impress the customers."

Severus could see the sense of that. He said tentatively, "Some wizards wear formal Muggle garb – I remember Fudge did – but your 'jeans' look more comfortable, and they're modest enough. Can I get a shirt of some kind with long sleeves, that buttons up to the neck?"

Hermione was laughing, and Potter grinned too.

The boy explained, "If Fudge ever went out among Muggles in the sort of gear he used to turn up at Hogwarts in, he would have been stared at much more than if he'd gone out in your plain black robes. Those, at least, might be worn by someone who belongs to some odd Eastern religion or something, or some charitable association, dressed up for an occasion. Lime green striped trousers, no way. Don't take Fudge as a model."

"One of you had better come with me, then, to ensure I make no errors of judgement, though I'd prefer plain black clothing anyway."

Potter said, "You go, Hermione, and see if you can find him a shirt that isn't black."

She responded, "In high summer it's going to be more difficult to find a shirt that _is_ black."

Later Severus transformed his robes to shirt and jeans, using some of Potter's rather more respectable clothing as a guide. Hermione said his boots were acceptable.

Shortly after they set out, she took his hand.

When he looked at her askance and tugged free she said calmly, "That's the third person who's nearly run you down, Severus. You need to learn to play pavement tag better."

Reluctantly he let her guide him down their street, across two other equally busy streets, until they reached the underground station. It was squat, dirty, but with a kind of tired majesty, all the same, covered as it was in red tiles, rather than made of worn brick like almost all the buildings they had passed. He watched while she pushed coins into a machine which spat out two slips of paper, then obediently followed her through the turnstile, giving up the ticket at once, and then retrieving it from yet another slot.

"I suppose it disappears into a slot at the other end?"

"Yes, unless you have a return ticket, or a weekly; then you get it back. Don't lose it, Severus; if an inspector finds you without a ticket, it can be very expensive. They don't just want the price of a new ticket; they assume you're trying to cheat and fine you accordingly."

Severus nodded obediently and stuffed the ticket into his shirt's breast pocket, following her into a lift several times the size of their goods lift. At the bottom he could see platforms, and curving walls at a distance, on each side. Hermione steered him, pointing out the direction signs.

When they reached the shop where he was to buy clothing he felt exhausted already, from the press of people, from taking in all the information she gave him, from the noise and fumes of traffic.

They came out with two pairs of jeans, only one of them black, since a second was not available, and several long-sleeved shirts which she assured him would not need to be pressed, if they were hung up as soon as they were washed.

Trying them all on in a tiny closet inadequately curtained was awkward, but Potter had already demonstrated zips to him, showing him how not to get caught uncomfortably in the teeth. Parading before Hermione for advice on whether the clothing fitted, since the mirror in the closet was so close he could not judge, might have made him feel very awkward indeed, if she had not been so calm about it. She explained that she usually helped Harry buy clothes, after the first time he had come home with a shirt of what she described as 'absolutely the wrong colour for his eyes'.

He said triumphantly, "Then I'm right to dress in black."

She answered, "Bor-ring," and talked him into shirts in khaki, and Slytherin green, as well as one with a very unobtrusive dark grey check.

She had said he could wear a tie if he wanted, but they were not comfortable in summer, and not necessary, so he had allowed her to lead him to what she called 'casual' shirts which he could button up high, or not, as he chose.

After that she obliged him to buy underwear. He protested that his own would serve, until she reminded him that the jeans fitted closely, unlike robes, and his own might be uncomfortable. He did not ask where she had found out what wizards wore under their robes. The range of things Muggle men could pick from was interesting, though he was horrified by some of what she showed him, like the red garment that might, perhaps, just cover his genitals. Fortunately she did not expect him to wear that kind of thing, and assured him that what he chose was respectably conservative; from the texture he thought they would be comfortable.

Earlier he asked her what he should do about his hair; did Muggles wear it long as so many wizards did? Considering the Muggle-born boys turned up at Hogwarts with quite short hair, for the most part, he suspected not. She said hair length was a personal choice, these days, but suggested he tie it back with a leather thong she produced from a kitchen drawer. Somewhat self-consciously he had washed it again that morning, wishing to look as good as possible while she was guiding him around Muggle London and taking him to see their lawyer. He did not wish anyone to think his appearance disgraced her. There was nothing to be done about his teeth, but he did not smile often, and usually did it with closed lips. His nose was perfectly respectable, and incomparable for looking down at others.

Severus went back to their home in his new black jeans and the grey check shirt, to grow accustomed to them. He was glad to transform his robes back to their normal appearance, but did not change out of the Muggle clothing.

After that he somehow joined her in her workroom, and watched while she worked, carefully keeping his distance, until he forgot that in the interest of discussing with her the details of the experiment she planned for that day. When Harry called them to lunch they were both wearing the silk head-coverings and the softly clinging masks that allowed them to both breathe easily and see clearly through, and he had bundled his hair under the scarf to keep it uncontaminated for the afternoon appointment.

The third trip on the underground was less stressful, and what she called the City surprisingly different looking from their home district, or the place she had taken him shopping. These streets were much wider, the pavements better kept, the buildings tall, some imposing, some merely vulgar, most in dull shades of grey in something she said was concrete rather than stone. She followed that up with a quick explanation that concrete was a man-made material, though nothing like brick or tile. Again this was more information than he needed, but he thought it might be hard to tell what ignorances could betray him.

Her lawyer had his offices only a few floors up on a lift very different from those he had travelled in so far. Severus thought that soon he would be walking beside her in a waking dream, hardly able to take in his surroundings any more, they varied so much from what he was used to in the wizarding world.

The lawyer himself, however, seemed much like a normal person: shorter than Severus, but nearly as lean, in surprisingly rumpled clothing, though it was otherwise much like what all the men down in the street had worn. His teeth were whiter, but almost as crooked, his nose nearly as impressive, and his curling hair, threaded with grey, hung untidily around his ears. He was both polite and cautious, but he relaxed when Severus asked Hermione to stay for the discussion. Wary of strange wizards, perhaps; sensible man.

Mr Howard said nothing about magic, or potions, or wizards. He referred to 'the product' and 'the specialised processes' and 'your clients', and had some advice to give about retaining ownership of 'said processes' which Severus suspected was good.

Severus said, however, "I don't wish to make these, ah, products myself, once they have been refined enough for satisfactory regular use. If I retain ownership, how can I avoid having to do that?"

This led to a lucid explanation of manufacture under licence, which sounded sensible, and would guarantee Severus a continuing income, though the initial fee would be less. Mr Howard agreed he could simply sell any particular process to the person who had asked for a product to be developed, but recommended against it.

He added bluntly, "If you own it, you have control of what is done with it afterwards. No one can redevelop it, and possibly change it for the worse, without your consent." Less positively, he said, "Miss Granger assures me that including such a requirement in a contract with such clients as hire you would not be unusual."

Hermione agreed that her Healers had accepted such a condition, though the need to give permission had not, of course, arisen yet, and if her creations were all they should be, was unlikely to do so for some years.

When they came away with a contract format rather different from that she used, which incorporated rather more stringent conditions, Severus was surprised no one asked for money, though Hermione had earlier placed a carefully wrapped parcel on a side table in the lawyer's office. Mr Howard had unwrapped it at once to reveal some strange looking purplish root vegetables, and offered sincere thanks. That looked like one of Potter's goodwill gifts, the salsify, he supposed, not payment.

"Come, Severus, people in the wizarding world send bills for later payment all the time!"

"Only if I've ordered something by owl," he said. "Don't you pay when you buy services, as we did this morning for goods?"

The journey home was filled with an explanation of the Muggle arrangements for cash and credit, the concept of a credit card, and the information that many different businesses competed to provide financial services. Gringotts had its drawbacks, but it also had a sterling reputation, and a desire to maintain it; the idea of having to choose from unknown managers someone to look after one's money, and hope they would not lose or make off with it, was worrying.

Once more Severus went to her workroom without thinking whether it was a good idea to do so. Eventually he had to ask her what was the tune he had heard her humming occasionally over the last few days; she had started to do it again, over and over, while stirring gently and precisely. Without looking up from the cauldron, she shook her head. He could see she had not known she was doing it, so he hummed it back at her.

She went a little pink. He was surprised she should be unconsciously humming a song that she thought improper, then she explained, concentrating on her potion.

"It's a wartime song. It's very old, an American song, I think, from their Civil War. The words I know, though, are from the Muggle First World War, early this century."

"So why do you sing it? and what do you mean by 'a wartime song'?"

"Muggle wars make songs as well as dead men, though wizard wars don't seem to – maybe because in our world there's no such thing as a common soldier. This one – it's sung by one of those men who was thrust into battle whether he wished it or not; he wants it to be over. He's looking forward to being rude to the people who tell him what to do, as he wouldn't dare to while the war is on."

She was being very coy about the words, so he insisted. Then it was his turn to fall silent.

 _"When this lousy war is over,  
No more soldiering for me;  
I will put my civvy clothes on.  
Oh how happy I will be…  
No more putting in for leave.  
I will kiss the sergeant-major;  
How he'll miss me, how he'll grieve."_

She was looking at him now, though she continued stirring with a steady hand; she had decided to push her unconscious challenge.

"You think that's me?"

Gently she answered, "I think you've served your time, Severus, and can honourably move on to take up your own life again, control it yourself."

Trying to avoid thinking of that he asked, "The original words?"

She shrugged. "A sentimental ditty about going home. It wasn't long before soldiers wrote their own words to it.

"You are not the only person who's sorry for the things he did, trying to end the war. Do you think Harry's sorry for nothing, ashamed of nothing? He seldom says anything, but he regrets many things, and having killed Voldemort is not least of them, however necessary it was to do. Do you think Harry should pay for those regrets until the end of his life? Never forgive himself, never be forgiven?"

"No! He was a child when the prophecy was made. He never chose…"

"He chose to fulfil the prophecy. He could have let Voldemort kill him, and keep himself free of wrong-doing, whatever that would have meant for everyone else. He chose to be a soldier in the war, Severus, though he had no choice about being caught up in it. Did you choose everything that led you to join Voldemort? Before you found out what that meant, and decided to draw back, whatever the cost to you? Didn't a lot of that happen to you, unavoidably, like Harry's choices? Why are you different? Because you were a few years older when you decided what to do about it?"

"I understand," Severus said at last.

Later he said, "I live with guilt, waking, sleeping. Twenty years of it. It will never end."

She had set aside the cauldron; he vaguely hoped she had not abandoned her work mid-task, ruining it, but he could not remember what she was doing just now.

Forcefully she replied, "You can end it. Only you. You don't need to continue to shoulder it, but you must decide. No one can do it for you. Were you waiting for Professor Dumbledore to say you had paid enough, and were free again?"

That didn't seem very likely to happen. Perhaps he should trust his own judgement and make his own decisions about how to repay, instead of letting Albus choose.

"Thank you. Excuse me. I need to think."

"There's no one in the nursery just now, if that would help."

He nodded, and walked up the stairs, letting himself into the cool, part-shaded, part-sunny glass enclosure on the rooftop. The green silence worked its magic. He wandered through the aisles, careful not to touch any of Potter's plants, but looking at them, allowing what she had said to work, while the surface of his mind assessed the health and growth of what would become Hermione's work materials. Slowly he settled into calm and at last into a tentative acceptance that perhaps he was free after all.

* * * *

Severus was not surprised that Potter and Hermione worked much as usual on Saturday. Given how much of her time in particular he had taken up this week he would not have been surprised if she worked on into the evening, too, but she did not.

Instead, after dinner she suggested they take coffee and wine up to the nursery and sit among the herbs, relaxing in the scented air.

Potter came too, but after a while he murmured, "I think I'll fire-call Draco," and excused himself.

He said tentatively to Hermione, "I hadn't realised they were on fire-calling terms."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "After the three of you worked so hard to save Lucius Malfoy? You know what Harry's like, he will take responsibility for people." She smiled. "He wants to know how Mr Malfoy is, of course. He and Draco usually talk for ages; Draco doesn't see many people. Though he does see you, doesn't he."

"I go to see them," he agreed. "Albus doesn't like it, of course."

Her lip curled. "Ungrateful of him, considering how much information Mr Malfoy gave him."

Severus shrugged. "He thinks Lucius would never have done so if the Dark Lord hadn't turned against him."

"True, I'm sure," she agreed dispassionately, "but not an excuse. No doubt he thinks Mr Malfoy lucky to be alive. That the pardon squared all debts."

Severus snorted, but then he changed the subject. He never liked to think of Albus's ingratitude, or what it might signify that he and Harry Potter had had literally to threaten the Headmaster to get even that belated and reluctant help for the renegade Death Eater.

Abruptly he asked, "You haven't changed your mind?"

Then he was appalled, realising what his discomfort thinking of Albus and Lucius had led him into saying.

She didn't pounce. Instead she answered calmly, "No, I haven't. Whatever you imagine, Severus, I've had plenty of time to think about it. It's you who needs to consider, and to decide that you're entitled to have what you want."

He took a deep breath and told himself not to be a coward. Not to leave all choice to Albus. To admit he needed as well as wanted her, and that, however young she seemed to him, she was adult, and had always been thoughtful; she would know what she wanted and needed too.

"I do want what you offer me," he said slowly, "but there is still a great deal I must think about."

"There's no point in rushing you," she responded.

He let out an almost inaudible sigh. So she would be patient. Admirable woman. When she tired of patience she would, no doubt, let him know, but for now he could try to adjust what he felt, what he thought, to this new world.

* * * *

They offered to let him lie in on Sunday, but Severus found himself curious, so he had said he would accompany Hermione to the nearby street market where old furniture was for sale. He only faltered slightly when he discovered that meant rising before five o'clock, and going without breakfast: they needed to be there by six, she explained, before those dealers who frequented the market bought everything worth having.

She had a short list of furniture she wanted for their home, and went most Sunday mornings. They pointed out the various pieces around the place acquired in this way, relatively inexpensively, save for their labour in restoring them and making them useable. Severus understood they could not afford antique furniture except on this basis, and that only pieces the traders could not be bothered to work on themselves went for sufficiently low prices.

He thought the furniture worth the trouble, since they had taught themselves the skills. Their mismatched armchairs had been handsomely re-upholstered to look as if they belonged together. Their Liberty-style dining table and its chairs, found separately, Potter said they had worked on for a month of free evenings. There were smaller pieces: a very old court cupboard Potter used to display the fruit and herbs he bottled and pickled experimentally; Hermione's narrow chest of drawers in her workroom; the long hall table opposite the head of their stairway – all happy finds that they had willingly slaved over.

Potter announced that he would take the chance to sleep in, before he was called on to start cleaning and refinishing and probably repairing whatever piece of furniture she brought home. Later he took Severus aside and asked him not to leave Hermione alone.

His eyebrows flickered into a frown. "Don't you trust these Muggles, though you live among them?"

"There are thieves in any busy crowd," Potter said.

After a moment he added, "She's not from around here, and her accent tells everyone that. So does mine, but it's familiar, to a degree. Some people resent us. And some think we have no right to use the market. They don't realise she's only trying to furnish our home as her parents did theirs. Maybe they think she wants to go into business in competition with the regular dealers, I don't know, but she's been harassed a few times. It wouldn't happen later in the day, when the tourists and people from other parts of London come, but you know Hermione: she won't miss the best bargains because other people want to hog them. Keep an eye on her, please."

Of course Hermione would not refrain from doing what she thought to be her right, to buy in open market, and wait until it was truly open, and safe for her.

"I will."

The sun was up when they set off, but barely visible through overcast that drizzled a chilly rain. Hermione pulled on her cloak, and suggested he transform his to something more like the coats Muggles wore, putting it on over the clothing he had been at such pains to buy.

"You're wearing a cloak."

"I bought it at the Military Disposals shop over near Brick Lane, and it looks it. It's a French horse-gendarme's cloak, cut down to fit me; I added the lining and trim myself. That's the kind of place a lot of people round here buy truly solid wool garments, not in the West End at fifty times the price. Your cloak, Severus, looks like something the villain in a pantomime might wear."

Severus did not bother to ask what that was, but flipped through the magazine she showed him, and decided to use as his model a picture of a long, black coat with wide skirts, slit up the back. It had lots of buttons, which would enable him to cover up as he liked to do. Reading the caption told him it was oiled cotton, light, but waterproof; that sounded acceptable for summer rain wear.

Hermione admired the garment, then took the belt out of his hands, fastening it in what she told him was the current fashion. He rolled his eyes at the thought there could be fashions in something so serviceable as the belt of a coat. Reluctantly he allowed her to unlatch some buttons and rearrange the set of the collar.

It occurred to him he was becoming very comfortable with the idea of having her hands on him. 'Better than nothing; take what you can get,' a small voice told him.

They walked for several blocks, but the market's position became obvious as the streets clogged with cars and small trucks; most of the shops were already open; and there were people already leaving with chairs over their shoulders and some incredible pieces of junk clasped in their arms.

Severus stared at a small woman forced to peer around the enormous glazed pottery demijohn she was somehow carrying. "What will she do with that?" he had to ask.

Hermione shrugged. "Clean it up, put it in her hallway, and stand tall weeds in it? A couple of stalks of Queen Anne's Lace, maybe, cut on a Sunday afternoon drive into the country? Or silk flowers from Taiwan, if she has no imagination. Or stripped willow branches." She added, maliciously, he thought, "Painted to match her front door, perhaps."

Severus flinched, and asked no more questions about what he saw. Any decorations in their warehouse stood in equally honest plain vases, but were freshly cut leafy stems and branches from Potter's nursery, for the most part. Potter only grew flowering things if the flowers were for use in potions. The few flowering plants in glazed pots on the living floor were Hermione's.

The market itself astonished him by its space. Not just the couple of long streets lined with stalls open or sheltered by canvas or shiny blue stuff on metal frames, the stalls filled with furniture piled high and everything from painted metal bathtubs to what looked very like a sole elephant's foot. Between the two streets there was about half a block where once, surely, buildings had stood, the ground now crudely covered with some crumbling black stuff. There some traders had rather larger areas available to them, and a lot of dirty old furniture to which, Severus thought, Sirius Black would not have given houseroom in 12 Grimmauld Place in the worst days of the war.

He tried to conceal his dismay as he asked, "You're going in there?"

She glanced over. "No," she said crisply. "I don't want a fifties lounge suite in Genoa velvet, or anything from that period. My mother likes some of the more original designs from then, cleaned up, but I don't. Come further along, Severus."

He stuck close, forced to it by the crowd and the noise, and soon took her hand, so as not to lose her. The first time she stumbled on a misplaced cobble he put his arm round her shoulder; she moved closer. They still had cobbles here! He had not seen them outside Diagon Alley. How … convenient. His hand tightened for a moment.

She slowed down, and Severus learned what patience was, as she made her way from stall to stall in the fine rain, sometimes silent, sometimes talking briefly with the stall-holders who spoke in a friendly manner. Some seemed to know her.

One man said, laughing, "Miss Hermy! You've come back for my pair of jardinère stands!"

"That I haven't," she retorted. "They're awful, Mr Simons, and you know it. You should knock five quid off and sell them to the first tourist you can catch."

"Have to get up early to catch you," the man agreed. "Nothing I can sell you, then?"

"Do you have any jardinères? I want two or more big ones, china, or glazed pottery."

"Nah. No garden pots today. Drop back next week; I'll see what I can get you. No obligation to buy."

She smiled and agreed and moved on.

"Will you have to buy whatever he offers you?" Severus murmured.

"No. If he finds anything I'd want – and he has a good idea, Harry and I bought that big yellow basin I have the lily and the goldfish in from him, as well as the set of pots in the kitchen that Harry has different chilli bushes in – he could find another buyer, no trouble. If I'm lucky I'll get here first, though he might hold them until seven for me if he's feeling reckless."

A small Bangladeshi woman engaged in a spirited attempt to sell her an enamel-inlaid brass tray on a table frame. Only after Hermione had refused for the third time, with no sign of impatience, did she say, in an accent indistinguishable from that of those Severus took to be locals, "Your Harry wanted a mortar and pestle."

"He did, but not those tinchy little ones, Amina. Something you can really press down with."

"Aha! Got a set a couple of days ago. Not new, but it's brass, so all you have to do is clean it up; it'll come up good."

She brought out a solid brass bowl, quite unornamented, but beautifully shaped, with its commendably solid matching pestle. Severus thought from its weight and shape that the set was quite old, but Harry would use it in the kitchen; it was big enough that Hermione was unlikely to need it in her workroom, unless for pulverising beetle cases.

After some ritual bargaining Hermione bought it at a little below asking price; Severus was convinced she could have made that offer at least five minutes earlier and had it accepted.

When he complained, after he had surreptitiously shrunken the things so they would fit in his coat pocket, she murmured, from where she stood in front of him, shielding what he did, "No, if I'd tried to get down to it like that Amina would have kept to her original price. It's the bargaining she wants. It's a skill, and she likes to see customers display it."

Severus decided not to roll his eyes; his eyeballs might get tired before the morning was done.

Five stalls and two conversations later Hermione stopped and said, reluctance in her voice, "That desk looks good."

When he managed to identify which piece attracted her, Severus agreed. Its grey timbers no longer had any polish; the drawers lacked handles; there were scratches, and one burn. From listening to her and Harry explain their repair work processes, however, and from seeing her examining other pieces of furniture this morning, he understood they could be smoothed out without damage to the usefulness of the desk. He thought one leg might prove to be wobbly; she murmured agreement without moving her head, and without changing her slightly doubtful expression. Severus concluded she did not know this dealer, or perhaps thought he would overcharge if she showed the interest he knew she felt.

Eventually she had to move into the narrow pathway between pieces to examine it more closely. Severus stayed where he was; he could not be much help to her in deciding whether to buy it, or in bargaining for it, if that was wanted here.

The scruffy young trader came round from his stool behind a card table, tossing his cigarette, still burning, into a big china platter.

"You want that piece, miss? Fifty pun', to you."

"Nonsense," Hermione said flatly. "I might give you twenty, if it's solid and free of worm. I need to look at it. Bring it out of there, please."

She backed away before she was trapped between the fellow and his stock. Severus frowned. He had not seen her do that before.

It was interesting that the man did not at once reject her offer, so far below what he had demanded. Was he 'trying it on', a phrase Severus had already learned?

Hermione spent the next ten minutes ignoring the trader, inspecting the piece thoroughly, ignoring the mizzle, while he stood by scowling, at first glancing towards his cigarette, then giving up and watching her as if he thought she planned to steal a dowel, or a worm.

She said flatly, "The cross-piece between the two back legs has been replaced, badly; it's been nailed on, not even glued and screwed. There's no worm, but the whole piece needs taking apart and re-glueing; there's no surety the dowels are intact. The central drawer lock has been broken out. All the drawers stick badly. This burn, right in the middle, will be hard to fix without scraping too deeply. I'll give you fifteen."

"Bit o' candle wax'll fix the drawers, miss," the man said. "Can't take just fifteen; you'd have to give me thirty at least. You can afford it."

Severus was not surprised that Hermione stiffened, before she said coolly, "It needs a lot more than candle-wax. You won't sell it to a dealer, not with that back strut and the mess the nails made of the legs. Seventeen."

Finally Hermione said, "Twenty."

The trader clearly thought it her final offer, and said, "Cash on the nail-head, then." He added with evident spite, "Can't give you the lend of a trolley."

"On the nail," she agreed, producing the money.

When she turned to move the desk further into the road the young man leaned forward, shoved her cloak aside with a quick brush of one hand, while the other dived in to pinch her thigh, hard, from the yelp she gave.

Severus moved forward, his way to the man blocked by both the desk and Hermione. She did not wait; she turned and stepped into him, her knee lifting. His yelp was louder; he fell back against yet another piece of furniture, then, losing his balance, slid sideways and into Severus's reach. Severus doubled his fist and used all the force of his shoulder to drive it into the man's belly, just below his ribs.

Vaguely he heard sounds of alarm and indignation, ignoring them for a moment in favour of watching the trader gasp like a stranded fish, then moan, his hands fluttering between his legs and his diaphragm. So Hermione had been tall enough to get him where he lived. Good. A pity he could not kick the man as he deserved; he was down, and the people crowding round might disapprove.

Severus reached out and plucked Hermione from among the furniture, pulling her where his body sheltered her from the men closing about them, asking quickly, softly, "You're not hurt?"

"I'm livid," she snapped, "but I'm not damaged, though I suppose it'll bruise."

"'Ere now, what'd Billy do, miss?"

"Took liberties," someone else observed.

Another man sniggered. "'E wants to watch it, that's the second girl this week got him in his wedding tackle."

"Thought she was alone, with Harry not here," the Bangladeshi woman asserted, drilling her way through the crowd of larger men to Hermione's side. Severus thought it wise to allow her to approach, though he kept a hand on Hermione's shoulder, stroking gently, unobtrusively, feeling her stiffness slowly subsiding.

"You okay then, Hermione?" The shrill voice was suddenly soft.

"Thanks, Amina, I'm fine." Hermione added dispassionately, "I'm not sure Billy is, though; Severus hit him hard."

"So long as he didn't bang his head too hard on the cobbles, he'll live," the woman said callously. "His wife's boyfriend should've given him one like that before he made off with her; might have made Billy think before he reached out for another woman."

The crowd was drifting off again, going back to business. No one seemed disposed to help the trader to his feet, so he clawed his way up the table.

The short, solid fellow from the stall over the way lifted one end of the desk. "Where you going with this, missus?"

Severus hastily took the other end, saying, "I can carry it for her."

"Big crowd; better someone helps you to the corner," the man said briefly.

Severus nodded, and beckoned Hermione up beside him with a sharp jerk of his head; the trader must know his fellows.

Once off the main market street the trader left them, with thanks from both, and Severus pulled Hermione close against him, asking, "Were you frightened?"

"Just angry." She smiled wryly up at him. "He hardly compares with Death Eaters."

"The same mad dog viciousness," Severus said flatly. "You should stay away from him; he disliked you before, didn't he? He'll hate you now, for shaming him, I suppose he'll see it."

"It's not worth it," she agreed, then smiled with satisfaction. "I did get the desk."

"I'm not sure that was worth it either; all that fuss for twenty pounds' worth of damaged wood?"

"Limed oak," she said placidly, "and the strut is too, however badly attached. Harry will get the nails out for me, fill the holes, fit new dowels when he reassembles it. Once I scrape the gunge and the worst of the marks away, then sand the wood down and wax-polish it, it won't look damaged, believe me. The other locks are all right; I can get new keys, and buy a new lock for the middle drawer. There are specialist shops. It will be beautiful when we're finished, pale, and elegant, but good for long use."

Severus sighed. Clearly she thought her new desk worth being assaulted by the man who sold it to her. Potter was right; she needed a keeper.

He hoisted the desk to his shoulder, careful the drawers should not slip out. "Home?" he asked.

"Yes," she agreed, then added, "but we pass Albanesi's; I'll get bagels for breakfast, we can get lox and cream cheese next door."

Severus sighed and followed her, glad the rain had stopped at last.

Later he agreed the food was worth stopping for; it was delicious with the smoky tea she made and served to the three of them, where they sat around the new acquisition.

All she had said to Potter about the trader was, "Billy Biggs was his usual nasty self, but I don't think he realised how easily all the damage could be fixed. He's not actually afraid of work himself, I don't think."

Severus allowed himself to glance at Potter and lift his eyebrows, then watched Hermione concentrating on what interested her, the necessary repair work.

Later he said to Potter, "You were right to tell me to stay close to her."

Potter's eyes lifted to his face, brows twitching together.

"She did have trouble?"

"A brutal pinch from that fellow she bought the desk from." He added with satisfaction, "I knocked him down, but only after she'd put her knee into him hard enough to double him up."

"Perhaps I'll do something about him."

Severus found himself saying, "Perhaps you won't. His neighbours seem to know what he is, and not to think much of it. You might be wiser to leave him to them. He's done it to other women."

Then he too scowled. This forgiveness idea could go too far.

Potter relieved his worry by grinning ferally and agreeing, "We live here; we should follow the neighbourhood rules. Don't worry, Severus; much of this sort of thing and someone will do him over properly one dark night with no witnesses, or none prepared to talk, at least."

Later Severus found himself learning to strip wood with water-based solvents and fine steel wool, and discovering how hard the century and more of polish and dirt and Merlin knew what was to get from all the tiny crevices in what he had thought a quite simple piece of furniture. It was surprising how enjoyable it was, working with the two of them, occasionally touching Hermione, quite by accident of course, as he reached for a fresh piece of steel wool, or rinsed one in the bowl of water before brushing off the scurf of runny mess the solvent created.

It was almost as restful as making a familiar and worthy potion. To be doing it in congenial company was rare, and pleasing.

By lunchtime the desk stood on a pad of old newspapers, still glistening slightly from the damp, all surplus water carefully wiped away, and he could look at their handiwork with satisfaction while Harry worked in the kitchen.

"In a day or so Harry can start taking it apart; there'll be more gunge to get off then, but it's essentially clean now. Thank you for your help, Severus."

He was able to say truthfully, not with a guest's politeness, "I enjoyed it."

She grinned at him. "So you do enjoy some things, Professor?"

He responded, "There are other things I am thinking I might enjoy, too," and wiped the grin away entirely.

"Don't tease," she whispered.

"Not teasing. May I join you in your workroom after lunch?"

"Yes," she answered, speaking very softly, as if to avoid frightening away some timid animal.

"Not rushing, but not too slowly, either," he promised. "Perhaps I can help you. I think you can help me."

She smiled then. "Yes, Severus, I hope so too."

* * * *

It was strange to accompany her to her workroom not even pretending that they would be discussing potions. It began to seem there would be plenty of time for that.

Severus did not try for a conventional embrace; neither of them needed a stiff neck. Once the door was closed and he was sure she was, indeed, inviting him, he picked her up and set her on her main workbench again.

She smiled at him and reached out to unbutton his shirt. No robes to get out of the way this time, but hardly fewer fastenings. He waited until she had his shirt pushed back, and was looking at him, consciously exploring, testing his reactions. He let her do that for a while, enjoying the feel of the small, strong hands, wanting her to touch every part of him.

He gripped her waist and pushed between her legs, feeling them wrap around him at once. Then he slid his hands under the colourful tee-shirt she wore, letting his palms and fingers mould around her body, touch her skin, enjoy its silky coolness, knowing she would not be cool for long. His hands moved up her back, cupped the delicate wings of her shoulder-blades, slid down her spine, before one hand pushed below the waistband of her jeans, fingertips reaching for the softer flesh, pressing into the enticing crease at the end of her spine.

No light cloth trousers through which he could feel her this time, but the soft cotton top was very easy to remove. She ducked her head out of the round neck as he pulled it free and tossed it aside, then caught his hands. He frowned, wondering if he was going too fast, but all she wanted was to undo his cuffs, then to pull his shirt away and send it after hers.

At last he had to kiss her, but he set his mouth to one breast rather than to her lips, enjoying the instant murmur of response, then the shudder as he licked around her nipple. His hands were behind her back now, supporting her, and she arched over them, tipping her head back. He could see the wild curls falling free, and shifted one hand, twining it in her hair, holding her in that position, before he moved to her mouth. Sweet and willing, yes; and soon more than that, eagerly exploring the depths of his mouth with her tongue as he was doing to her.

Hermione could use both hands to explore his upper body, and did so with increasing confidence, returning again and again to the spots she marked as especially responsive, finding them almost as quickly as Lucius had once done, so long ago. He moaned softly into her mouth as she scratched gently at his nipples. They were becoming increasingly sensitive, almost too much so, but he would not ask her to move her hands for worlds, or to end that kitten-like pleasure and pain stimulus.

He thought about lowering her to the bench and getting rid of their trousers. Robes were much less trouble. Then he thought how hard the wood was, and how uncomfortable she might be once his weight pinned her down, even though the bench height was almost perfect for him. He freed his mouth, sighing into hers, kissed his way over her cheek, then blew moistly across her ear. She shivered, and her hands clawed into his hair, trying to get his mouth back on hers.

"Bedroom," he said indistinctly, drawn back despite his resolution to give her every care.

She made a questioning sound.

"Bedroom," he repeated, more firmly. If he could barely control himself, why should he expect her to be able to do so?

"Bed softer," he added, by way of explanation.

She understood that; she sighed, and her fingers eased their grip.

It was no bad thing, he decided ruefully, that she should have this chance to draw back. From the way she shivered, and clung, hands and body and limber legs, and sometimes made little whimpers that sent his temperature skyrocketing, she wasn't used to this. He didn't want to overwhelm her; she should be wholly consenting.

He sighed too; Severus Snape again, trying to be responsible again.

Her hands stroked down over his hair and shoulders, then she eased back from him, though not far. Just enough to let them both think, perhaps.

Her hands linked loosely round his shoulders, and she rested her head against him.

"You'll come to my bedroom?"

"Gladly," he said, unwontedly frank.

"Shirts."

"Oh. Yes." Having been reminded, he was not anxious to meet Potter half naked, with Potter's equally bare best friend tucked into his arm.

She seemed to know. "Harry's busy. He had nursery planting and harvest records to update, remember?"

She made a long arm for their clothing, and could not reach. His arm was longer; he passed over her shirt, and stepped back from her, at last, to pull on his own.

Afterwards, he remembered little about getting upstairs to her bedroom, and only later looked at the room consciously, having been focussed entirely on her; but it seemed she remembered.

Teasingly she said, "Maybe it was self-consciousness. You carried me in your arms, Severus; I'm sure you don't do that often."

Rather dryly he answered, "The last person I picked up was Lucius, to get him onto the flying carpet, if we don't count the actual battle. Are you sure I did that?"

She edged closer to him. "Do it again and see if it feels familiar?" she invited.

He found himself smiling, and got off her bed, sliding one arm under her hips and the other going round her just above her waist. She promptly put her arms round his shoulders and tucked her head into his neck.

"Like this."

"Very good," he said appreciatively, and hugged her hard enough to make her yip.

"Does your memory need prompting about what came next?" she enquired.

"I remember that very well. It was very memorable. But we could do it again, to make sure I don't forget."

Hermione chuckled softly; it tickled his neck.

"If you can manage it again so soon. You were talking, before, about being so much older than me, I wasn't sure –"

He snorted, squeezed her again, and said firmly, "I'm a wizard, girl; for these purposes I'm not so very much older than you are. What's the point in living for two hundred years or so, if you have to do without this for a hundred and more?"

Not a point of view he could recall having expressed before, but he had expected to live alone through whatever time he had left, as he had always done. The prospect of a wizard's long life was at last attractive.

Severus tossed her back onto the mattress and followed her down, and soon her impertinent tongue was being used for other things.

This time he urged her to mount him, when they both seemed to be ready, and was at first breathlessly amused by her wide-eyed interest in the different feel, the new perspective. His amusement faded as she rocked slowly, luxuriously, shamelessly using his body for her pleasure. This time it might be easier to wait. It was delicious to be teased like this, to be confident his lover wanted his pleasure as well as her own, and to feel her confidence in his willingness.

When he felt he could wait no longer he gripped her hips and seized control from her, thrusting up vigorously, enjoying first her moment of surprise, then her enthusiastic response to the change of pace.

Hermione was even closer than he had thought. Her head went back, her body arched, so he had a glimpse of the wonderful bow of her flesh poised over him, before she cried out and shuddered, melting into pleasure. He pulled her down against him to enjoy the feel of the whole of her trembling against the whole of him. She tried valiantly to keep up her rhythmic movements, pushing towards him as he thrust into her, for the few seconds left before his own climax hit.

Afterwards he reflected with smug satisfaction that while Miss Granger took a student's earnest interest even in having sex, the observer in her had been utterly swamped by the joyful, unthinking lover.

She cuddled up against him then, suddenly tired out. He held her close, glad to be able to enjoy this too, where he had usually been obliged to part in haste from such lovers as he had had. This was different, real, permanent. She was his, and he was hers, and things could only get better. He sighed, drifting into a light sleep.

At some late hour Severus rose from the bed, planning to fetch some food from the kitchen. When he found a tray outside the door, with a platter under a warming charm, he wondered, just for a second, if he was embarrassed that Potter knew perfectly well what they were doing. No, he decided, bending down to retrieve it. He had been made welcome here; this was part of it.

He carried it back to the bed and woke the best part of his welcome, and fed her pieces of chicken and fresh green peas, in between eating quite hastily himself, fascinated by the shaping of her lips as she took the peas from the fork he held. He put the fork down and started feeding her by hand. She lost interest in peas and chicken and sucked gently on his fingers.

Before they were done there was wine spilled on the sheets, but Hermione was as quick with a wand as he. It gave him ideas, though. He poured a little from his glass onto her left breast and licked it up. She gasped at the cold and wet, and then again at the wet warmth of his tongue.

Later Severus decided there were almost certainly many other very interesting ideas to explore, experiments to conduct. Tomorrow night, perhaps, he thought, sated once more, and curled up in her sheets, spooned behind her.

He woke once from nightmare, and found her hands stroking, petting, and heard her soft voice murmuring. For once in his life he drifted back into sleep, instead of needing to wake fully. She would hold the nightmares at bay, or, if not, he could hold her, and be comforted, assured of having all he needed.

* * * *

Approaching the kitchen for breakfast, Severus could hear the voices, not loud, but tight with tension. He hesitated, but the deeper voice wasn't Harry's; not deep enough, and it rose and fell in swoops, as his never would. He did not think of retreating. If someone was annoying Hermione, he might need to be saved from himself.

Then he heard, and stopped, stunned by the words rather than by the recognised voice.

"How can you do this? Aren't I your boyfriend?"

There was an indrawn breath, but the passionately angry voice swept on. "Are you crazy? What did he do to you, to make you think this? You hate the greasy git, just like all of us! You won't let me move in, but you'll invite him into your home? Your _bed_? I don't believe it. What has he done to you?"

Of course she would have a boyfriend, someone her own age, someone innocent, if stupid. Why had he thought he could have her, and everything else he wanted? Why had she let him think it? Two sweet nights, and no more, amounted to worse than nothing at all.

She screamed something incoherent, obviously quite as angry as her real lover, and something broke, something clattered, and there was a startled exclamation.

He turned to go, then swung back. Someone should tell her she couldn't save even one wizard with lies. He'd forgotten her compulsion to rescue the world's waifs. She must have seen him as another, but did she have to lie to him, even to the point of making love – no, having sex with him?

He rounded the kitchen cupboard wall, to see Ron Weasley standing before the stove, eyes starting, freckles standing out on pale skin. Weasley's hand was on his reddened cheek, half hiding what must have been a good smack. He had earned it; he had no right to criticise whatever she chose to do. Well, perhaps to resent her going to another man, and one he certainly still hated, though she and Potter had both convinced him that was over, for them.

She was much shorter than Weasley, but she stood in front of him radiating aggression, pressing into his space, while he leaned further back over the stove. There was almost certainly something of Potter's simmering there; he'd better be careful. She'd make him clean it up if he knocked it over. The stray thought created no warmth in the cold that was settling back over him.

If he had stayed in his dungeon, not tried to break out of his closed circle, he would not be so cold now. He could go on living without her, or partly living; if what she had offered wasn't real it would not have warmed him for long.

"Hermione."

She whipped round, and Weasley looked appalled; he managed to shuffle even further back. Some Auror the boy would make, if he still couldn't stand up to a glare he'd known for seven years.

"It's wrong to lie to people, Hermione," he said as gently as he could, trying to keep accusation out of his voice, "even to do them good. It never helps, but I know you meant well."

He would not say goodbye. He turned away, his robes swinging loose over his Muggle clothing, and made for their breakneck staircase.

"Severus! Wait!"

No footsteps running after him, but as he reached the stairhead he heard her angry-cat hiss, "Hands _off_ , Ron!"

As he clattered down the stairs, getting away from her at a speed just short of what would send him tumbling, he heard the snap of magic behind him. So she'd pulled her wand on the boy. He was far too young for her, but she'd chosen him; she'd just have to train him thoroughly.

He also heard Potter, who always popped out of the woodwork when anything unusual happened. He had realised days ago that Potter would probably be on a war footing for the rest of his life, just like himself.

"Hermione, what's the matter? Ow!"

She had lost patience with him too. He'd better hurry; he didn't want to listen to her argue and justify. She would go on for ever, sure she was right, maddening brat, unlikely angel, but not his.

As his own wand opened the man-high door set in the big warehouse doors, tall as castle gates, he paused for a moment. He'd been too impatient to use the keys they had given him, but a lifetime of caring for security above anything else held him on their doorstep long enough to transform his robes into the long-skirted black oiled cotton coat. Luckily he was wearing those jeans she had picked out a few days ago. It also made him turn and relock the door, before he strode down the street towards the tube station.

A long walk, Salazar take all the Muggles who infested these streets; but his own training, far more than his hosts' insistence, ensured he would not Apparate out of here where he might be noticed. Certainly not on their doorstep, where it might make trouble for them. They had meant to be kind.

* * * *

Harry pulled Ron away from the stove even while he still gripped Hermione's left wrist.

She kicked him, but he held on.

Harry let go of Ron to grab her shoulders and grip hard for a moment, though he didn't shake her. She hated that, so he never did it.

She didn't wait for another question.

"Ron has managed to convince Severus he's my bloody boyfriend, and he has first dibs."

She glanced sideways at Ron, who flinched from the promise of retribution.

Harry released her. "Then get after him. He can't Apparate out of here. Do you want me to come?"

"No, but I must catch him before he gets somewhere quiet that he can."

"Take my broom."

She exhaled at yet another delay, hurrying towards the stairs.

Harry called, "Catch him if you can. If he does get away, come back. We'll both Apparate to Hogwarts, he's sure to go there."

She ran down the stairs quite as fast as Severus had. She had listened to that light patter feeling sick, her pulse crashing in time with it. Now she was able to pursue him she didn't feel so frantic. Severus had long legs; perhaps Harry was right about the broom.

She grabbed it from its cupboard near the front door and left that swinging behind her. The wards would keep the place safe enough until Harry closed it.

In the doorway she mounted the broom. She muttered a quick Disillusionment Charm, hoping it would work on witches on brooms as well as on hippogriffs and other magical flying animals, and, since the immediate street area was clear, shot up.

Harry's broom was alarmingly light and responsive, but she managed to straighten it out just above the second floor, bending low over it, gripping it with anxious hands. Muggles seldom looked up, and most of the windows at this level were painted blind, in some weird desire for privacy for workshops and the occasional small office. Thank Merlin for the cushioning charm, or she'd be likely to fall off, as well as so stiff from gripping with all her body that she wouldn't be able to stand up when she landed.

Her eyes searched the street as she flew. She hoped Severus was planning to use the underground. Whenever they left the warehouse with him that was how they had gone.

Yes! He was almost halfway there already. Oh please Merlin, let him not slip down the stairs before she caught up. Would he wait for the big creaky lift, as they always had, or run down the hundreds of emergency stairs, like descending a spiral into hell?

She urged the broom on faster, no longer frightened of anything but not getting there first.

She passed him; like the hurrying Muggles, he didn't see her. Only his height and his long hair differentiated him from them, all preoccupied with the idea of being somewhere else as soon as possible.

She whipped round the corner of the tube station building, its once-glowing deep red tiled walls smeared with dirt and graffiti, into the side alley blocked by an opportunistic storehouse, itself half a century old. She grounded the broom abruptly in a disused entryway barred by a gate. The indent provided just enough shelter for her to land, gasping, almost tumbling into the wall before she straightened out. Sliding her wand down her sleeve into her fingers, she muttered the shrinking charm and slipped the broom into her back jeans pocket. While Harry would probably forgive her if she lost it, he wouldn't be happy.

A quick look, then she darted back, trembling. Severus mustn't get away, and mustn't know she was here in time to turn and flee from her. He would flee, she knew; he had invested too much hope in the promises she had made him to be able to face her once he thought them broken, or never truly meant.

Half a minute in hand to control her breathing. Merlin knew what she would say.

She stepped out, then ran across the wide front entry, dodging the tradesmen and workroom girls the lift had just disgorged. She ran right into Severus, gasping, hearing him gasp, then gripped the lapels of his coat, looking up into the burning black eyes.

It was probably better he should be angry; if he had looked distressed she might have started crying, which would not earn her any tolerance. Get in first, before he tried to paralyse her with the sting of that silken, terrible tongue.

It proved to be quite easy.

"I love you."

That certainly halted him. His hands were clutching her shoulders, preparing to push her away, but he froze, then shuddered.

"No. He said …"

"Ron's an idiot," she snarled at him. "He tries that on every few weeks, hoping we'll weaken and give him a bed so he won't have to go home to Molly and Arthur." For good measure she added, "You're an idiot, too! Didn't years of spying teach you not to jump to conclusions, look at all the evidence before acting?"

Something she said made him relax slightly; the grip of the hard hands eased. He might not shake her, but she would certainly have bruises. No matter. She could take it out of his hide later.

He was not fully convinced, probably not of anything. His face went, not blank, but thoughtful. He would have learned long ago not to look as if he was concealing his reactions, and thinking something over was an authentic Severus Snape reaction to almost any surprise.

"Why would he carry on like that, if you've given him no right to expect your loyalty?"

Yes, he might not care too much if she had slept with Ron – though he must know she'd had no one but him – but keeping faith, that was important.

Rather more gently she answered, "He has a lot of growing up to do, Severus, even now. It probably would have been better if his parents could have made him an allowance until he finishes at the college, turfed him out of the nest. As it is, Molly tells him what to do, the college trainers tell him what to do, he cadges meals and beds wherever he can from his friends and colleagues, and doesn't have to take any responsibility except for his study."

She couldn't help adding acidly, "That's enough of a job of work, perhaps."

She saw his lip twitch, as that struck a chord for the teacher in him.

"Harry and I decided, right at the start, we weren't going to let him opt out of looking after himself by coming to stay with us, as if nothing had changed. After two years, he'd still rather fight that than work out how to get a place of his own, where he would _be_ on his own. He doesn't want that. Probably the twins will let him move in for his last year. George said the other day Ron would be busy enough with his studies that he'd want to be away from Molly ragging him about what to do, and they might get a bit of work in the stockroom out of him for his board. They're not going to give him houseroom if he's only going to use it to party on, though.

"Now is that quite enough about Ron? He's our friend, he always will be, and you're going to have to get used to that; but never in any world could I imagine taking him as a lover, or even a boyfriend!"

She leaned into him. "I told you whom I wanted for a lover."

Uncertainly he said, "Maybe you just want a teacher. You're ambitious…"

"If you think I'd pay for _anything_ with sex, Severus, and pay _you_ , you're not thinking straight. If I didn't want you, why should I, for a minute, put up with your snarks and smirks and sulks and silences behind a book?"

That seemed to strike a chord too; he relaxed a little more.

She added, "I can get teaching, though it's not as good as yours would be. You –"

A rough jostle from a shoulder and a blow to her thigh from a toolkit interrupted her. Severus drew her quickly into him, sheltering her from the new crowd. It must be almost eight o'clock.

The ticket collector called over, "Take him elsewhere, girlie; we don't rent our wall-space by the hour."

There was no actual malice in it, but she flushed all the same, and felt Severus stiffen as well as saw him scowl – well, scowl more deeply.

"Come on," she muttered. "Come home."

He had been moving, but he stopped dead at that. She sighed. Too soon.

"Come and have a cup of coffee and a roll in Albanesi's, then. We have to talk somewhere, Severus!"

When Mr Albanesi brought their coffees, black for Severus and cappuccino for her, he seemed pleased by the sight of her hand over his on the table, and the way they were leaning towards each other across it, though Severus was still rather stiff.

"Bring your fellow here again, missus. About time he showed up, should be able to keep Biggs in his place."

Mr Albanesi blithely ignored the fact that she wore no ring. In this part of London, alliances were often more a matter of mutual agreement than contract, for people who had been driven away from places where they were excluded from the protection of laws and contracts. Sticking with alliances was also valued.

She said softly, as Severus's scowl returned, "Billy at the market on Sunday, remember?"

"The one who thought he could handle you and get away with it."

There was satisfaction in his voice; he was undoubtedly recalling the pleasure of finishing what her knee in Billy's groin had started.

"So that wasn't the only time?" Clearly he was thinking about scowling again.

"No, and it wasn't the first time I'd pushed him off, either, though he always tried to kiss me, before; I don't think he'll try again."

She grinned at him, pleased herself at the memory of Billy sprawling on the damp cobbles, then doubling up, one hand clutching his genitals and the other pressed into his diaphragm, crowing rather than breathing. Someone had taught Severus seriously dirty fighting as well as fast wand-work. A benefit of a life as a Death Eater, perhaps.

That single hard blow had earned Severus more approval than he was aware of. The local shopkeepers and traders, knowing she hadn't been brought up here, doubted she could look after herself. She needed a man. Though they respected Harry, a friend wasn't the same; at last she had her own man. This wasn't Hermione's view of how the world should be organised, but if it made life here easier for Severus she wouldn't complain.

She explained, "Billy's wife ran off with a dot com salesman a couple of months ago, because he roughed her up too often. He's been looking for someone to cook and clean and keep him happy in bed ever since, and for a while he's fancied me; he thought I had money."

Severus would neither know nor care what a dot com salesman was, but he seemed to think that an appropriate response to misuse.

He raised his eyebrows at her. "And have you?"

Hermione shrugged. "Billy probably has a lot more than I have, if he knew it. We just do different things with what we have. He'd never buy books, or antique furniture for his home, no matter how much cleaning up it needed; only mugs do that. We buy wine, not whisky, and he thinks I loaf around all day while Harry keeps us with the market garden."

At least he was talking, now, if not of what she wanted him to talk with her about. On the other hand, that look of satisfaction had been decidedly personal.

"Severus, forget about Ron. Try to trust me."

He took a deep breath, then reached his free hand for hers, brushing the half-eaten roll out of it.

"I thought I could. You've always been so serious. But you've always wanted to help people, too, even house-elves, for Salazar's sake, idiot girl! What if – what if that was all it was? I thought you meant to free me from Dumbledore, from all the traps, and then let me go my own way. If that was all, I might as well stay at Hogwarts. At least if I stay my Slytherins will have someone looking after them, and I have my Potions workroom, with all the ingredients I ask for. I … don't want to be alone, Hermione, any more than you say young Weasley does."

She chose to be tart with that confession. "Where would I be if I went to bed with everyone I thought needed help? Do I sleep with Harry? Ron? Neville? The house-elves?"

He flinched at that, and an expression of strong distaste settled on his face for a moment, before he accepted her logic. She didn't care to imagine house-elf sex either, but she couldn't repress a giggle at his revulsion.

She drove it home with, "Up to my eyebrows in useless males, that's where I'd be."

"Define useless," he said, slyly enough to make her flush.

He held her hands more tightly for a moment, then released her and sat back, picking up his coffee cup. Back to normal, or wishing her to think so.

She rescued her roll and chewed on it, glad to be putting something more into her hollow stomach. Anxiety like that before breakfast was very bad for the digestion.

"Very well," he said, when they had finished. "I'll come home with you. But there's a lot we need to settle. Just not here."

"No," she agreed, digging in her pockets for pound coins.

She didn't think he would be willing to let her get too close to him yet, though, so she decided they ought to take the long way round.

As well as paying for their breakfast, she bought two loaves, and fished out the fine mesh string bag that lived in her back pocket ever since she moved in to the warehouse.

"Ah, you're a good girl, don't like the plastic any more than I do," the baker said approvingly, tipping the two paper bags into the open netting for her. "Bad for fresh bread. Don't you want an extra loaf for your man, though?"

It was true they normally bought bread two loaves at a time.

"Severus? Another sourdough, or white bread? Something else?"

"Not that stuff full of grain you had Saturday," he said firmly. "I'm not a hen. Wholemeal?"

He took the bag from her, and did not seem surprised to see it expand in a way quite unnatural to a Muggle when on the way back to the warehouse she added a bunch of beetroot and some onions and potatoes to it.

"I'll just get sour cream, for the borscht, and milk," she said quickly, ducking into a shop labelled 'Dairy', which sold a remarkable array of cheeses.

Severus browsed the counter thoughtfully, and asked her to buy some of the fresh cheese that he had eaten with oatmeal biscuits in Minerva's rooms for years. She found a packet of those when he told her; they seemed to have been made in Scotland, so perhaps they would taste like the ones Minerva's Squib cousin provided.

Slowly they headed for what she hoped he would learn to think of as home, while she encouraged him to think what he might like for dinner besides the beetroot soup.

"If Potter cooks, doesn't he choose?"

"Harry will cook anything you give him a recipe for, but his aunt taught him plain British cooking – very plain. He's quite happy to hear suggestions, this early in the day, anyway. I don't help him a lot in the kitchen, but at least I can make sure he doesn't have to plan all the menus. So can you."

Severus was unsure what their budget would cover, and his stock of Muggle money was almost exhausted. He would have to go back to Gringotts soon. "Chicken?"

"Pork, maybe, with that soup, if that's all right?"

He nodded. She supposed that Severus would eat almost anything, after years of living at Hogwarts.

By the time they reached the front door Hermione had quietly summoned another pair of string bags and carried them, with a lighter load than his, but evenly balanced, and Severus seemed to accept that he was a member of the household rather than just a guest.

There was no sign of Ron. Giving Harry a chance to get him out of the place, to shove him off to his first class of the morning, had been another reason to do the food shopping just then. Harry was in the kitchen when they came in. Normally he would have been in his study at this hour, straight after breakfast.

He smiled at the supplies.

"Catering for a week? Good, that saves me doing it."

He took the bag Severus carried.

As he distributed the contents around the cupboards, with Severus watching carefully, which pleased her, Harry asked calmly, "So you're staying? Great. Welcome to the Pearly Gates."

Severus looked startled.

"This isn't really Cockney country, that's even further east. But close enough that we called the business for the district."

Hermione took pity on her lover's ignorance. "You know the way Tonks talks? Most of it's affectation. Her dad learned to speak like everyone else, at Hogwarts. But he's from the East End, and one of the things costermongers – people selling fruit from street barrows – still do there, on special occasions, anyway, is dress up in suits covered with mother-of-pearl buttons. Mostly, nowadays, pearly kings and queens collect for charity. When I told Harry about that, he said we should call this place Pearly Gates, since the original Cockney boroughs aren't too far down the river."

Harry sighed. "It's a very bad pun. The gates of heaven. If only the heaven of independence. It won't mean anything to a wizard, so we made the business name a bit different."

She saw Severus smile wryly. "It has a meaning, Potter. The Dementors show us wizards have souls to be saved too, even if we don't believe in miracles."

Harry shivered, but he said quietly, "Yes, we're much the same as Muggles, really. Magic is probably just another gene, or mutation."

Then he smiled. "If you don't know about that sort of thing, Severus, you and Hermione are going to have some wonderful after-dinner discussions. She'll keep you in extra reading for years, just as she does me."

Severus said deliberately, "If I am to live here, among the Muggles, with you, then I need to learn about them. You keep a distance, but you don't keep yourselves completely separate, so I won't be able to."

In a murmur he added, "There may be something to learn from them."

* * * *

They were in Hermione's workroom again, but this time Potter was present, wanting to know what changes were most important for Severus to be comfortable, living and working with them. Severus supposed that one of the changes should be making himself say 'Harry' rather than 'Potter'.

She had already suggested that he would want a workroom of his own, but he thought that would keep until they had a better idea of how much development work he would be commissioned to undertake, if she was prepared to share her workspace for a time. He had been pleased to discover she was content to share her bedroom with him.

Harry pointed out Severus would, nonetheless, almost certainly require some space he could think of as his own, whether for privacy, or intense thought. He did not say that he might need a place to retreat to when his native snarkiness got the better of all this unnatural amiability.

Severus discovered the limed oak desk was meant for him, not for Hermione. How well she understood him, if she knew his first need was for somewhere to work. How confident had she been that he would still be with them when the desk was ready for use? Was buying it an expression of belief, or of hope? Later he would ask her.

Tomorrow he should Floo to Diagon Alley to visit Gringotts. Some time soon he would need more Muggle clothing. The trousers Muggles wore took a lot of getting used to, but it was going to be impossible to wear robes here. He didn't want to look out-of-place at her side.

He could see he was going to have to change a number of well-established habits to cater for his new sensitivity to what others might think of him as her companion, her lover. He thought, however, he would have no trouble continuing to dress mostly in respectable, modest, unobtrusive black.

He said as much, and was disconcerted when they both laughed.

Hermione rose from her chair to sit on the arm of his, the only armchair in her workroom, sliding inexorably into his lap, and murmured, "Respectable and modest, perhaps; unobtrusive, forget it, Severus. It's not so bad in Muggle clothing, but in robes you look like the demon king with no trouble at all."

Severus made a mental note of something else he would have to ask her to explain later. There was no point in trying to deny he had long made a habit of creating a dramatic impression with the swirling skirts and sleeves of his robes.

He decided to push his luck.

"Will your lawyer draw up a marriage contract, or should we go to someone in the wizarding world?"

She squirmed in his lap; he grabbed her to hold her still before his body's prompt interest in hers became obvious.

She twisted her head, then, to look up into his eyes and say indignantly, "That must be the worst marriage proposal ever!"

He smirked at her. She had not said 'No'.

"Your experience is so vast?"

"I don't need experience," she retorted, "to know what most women would think of that. However, I'll take it. Do we need a contract, though? It's not as if either of us has any money."

Harry said with amusement, "That may change. Potions Masters make more money than schoolteachers, I'm sure. Not Mr Howard. Hermione's right, Muggles would think a contract between you odd and unnecessary. Gringotts can probably recommend someone. Someone to marry you, too, if you want to be old-fashioned and make a binding wizarding marriage."

"Yes," Severus said firmly. He added wryly, "Albus Dumbledore has married many of Hogwarts's former students, but I think perhaps we won't ask him. He's not going to be happy with either of us, and I don't want him blaming you, Hermione, for my decision to leave him."

"You could give Professor Dumbledore your notice by Floo," Hermione said softly. 'There's no need to go back at all."

Severus sighed and closed his eyes. "I imagined that conversation so often, not long after you young people were born. Albus made it clear I hadn't paid my debts. I knew that."

He did not see the scowls Hermione and Harry exchanged, as he went on, "And I still owe him; I always will. It's not a debt I can repay, that's all."

Harry said with a vigour that snapped his eyelids open, "You owe the Headmaster _nothing_! You may owe the wizarding world something, but if so, it's to do the best you can, not whatever someone else finds most convenient."

"You hate teaching," Hermione said bleakly, "though you do it quite well, at least for those who are up to your weight."

Harry added, "If you teach, you should teach potential Potions Masters, not schoolchildren. Take apprentices. There are people floundering for guidance, Severus, that you could give, without being driven mad by laziness and inattention and resentment."

Hermione followed up. "But you don't have to do any of that. You could spend your time in pure research, and be paid for it – going by what they pay me, someone who was your student only two years ago, you could probably be paid very well, and do only what you love to do, and more than pay any debts you may have in doing so."

In some surprise he said, "You're tempting me."

For a moment that Gryffindor grin showed on Harry's face, but it disappeared as he said, "No. We're encouraging you to do what the Headmaster himself should have suggested, strongly, as soon as the war was over, or at least as soon as you got your balance back. We all needed time for that.

"You taught for nearly twenty years because the only place you could be safe after renouncing Voldemort's service –" Severus flinched slightly at the name, but he was used to feeling that response – "the only place, was Hogwarts, under Dumbledore's eye, and hand. You paid for that safety not just by teaching, when it's not your vocation, but by spying. For twenty years you did three jobs, with no thanks. Isn't that enough remorse, enough doing well to make up for the bad you couldn't mend?"

It was not, of course, the first time Severus had reflected that Dumbledore had exploited him ruthlessly, but that it should be so obvious to a pair of children… They probably thought Dumbledore had used him as badly as he had used Harry.

Harry had suffered his share of that exploitation, and only a determined fight for privacy, when all was done, had enabled him to cut loose. Dumbledore would have been very happy to have a lucky and competent war-wizard under his hand, too, just in case. Dumbledore probably believed there would be another Dark Lord, some day. So there might, but probably not in his time. Please Merlin, not in theirs either.

It was the first time Severus had reflected that perhaps Dumbledore had exploited him heartlessly, though. Just as he had done with Harry.

"And you're offering me – shelter?"

"You don't need shelter, Severus," Harry said impatiently. "But yes, you're welcome to stay here as long as you like. That's from both of us. What Hermione's offering you," he added, a little slyly, "is between you and her."

Before Severus could bite his head off for impudence, he was gone.

Ominously Severus asked, "Did you plan that with him?"

"No."

Hermione was not at all intimidated.

Instead she moved closer, put one arm behind his back, lifting the other hand to his shoulder, and tilted back her head to meet his eyes. Without thinking he set his hands to her waist, turning her in his lap so that she straddled his thighs. She shifted closer still.

Eye to eye now, and a little flushed, she looked at him.

"Are you bold enough to take it, Severus? To believe you are entitled to it? That you don't have to earn it? Love is given, not paid for."

"You may have to rub the lesson in some more," Severus murmured, but he had his mental balance back, and a peculiar effervescent sense that he thought might be joy.

"I'll take it," he added, to ensure there should be no misunderstanding.

"And give it?"

"Bossy little Gryffindor," he said severely, but it was more of a smile than a smirk that curved his thin lips.

"Then you'd better meet my parents."

"Yes," he said with resignation. "I can't just walk out on Albus, either."

Her scowl did not worry him, but he didn't like to see it.

Before she could tell him what she thought of that, he added, "Someone who _is_ a born teacher, is Ross Holly. I could give those responsibilities to him with an easy mind."

"Yes," she breathed, diverted.

Not wholly, however. "So you're not walking out. You can recommend your replacement, you can let Ross have your lesson plans to get started, till he's found his feet, can't you?"

He nodded.

"And if Professor Dumbledore doesn't accept the recommendation," she concluded briskly, "that's his lookout."

Severus Snape decided that he might, after all, be a much-managed wizard, but there were worse fates. Fighting with her would be far more agreeable than trying to hold his own with Albus Dumbledore.

Before she thought of anything else to convince him of, he moved her closer still, and slid his arms hard around her, pulling her against his body from forehead to her sweet warm crotch. She opened her mouth before his lips touched hers, and he sighed gratefully, infinitesimally, into it, before he thrust his tongue into that wet haven. With leisurely care he moved her against his body so that her nipples rubbed against his shirt through the flimsy material of her own.

They both knew where they were going now, and probably so did Harry, because he never reappeared to summon them to dinner.

~~The End~~

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my only entry to scribbulus_ink's Classic Canon Challenge of 2004 on LJ: take a classic and do any one of a number of things to it, setting it in the Harry Potter universe. I volunteered Richard Wagner's opera _The Flying Dutchman_ for vivisection as an Outraged Opera.
> 
> If you don't know the opera, and want more detail, there's a synopsis at http://www.metopera.org/synopses/; but here's the deal:
> 
>  _My take on the story_
> 
> The flying Dutchman was a sea-captain who offended the Devil by swearing he would round the Cape of Good Hope against a storm, if he had to keep trying for ever, so that's what the Devil arranged for.
> 
> However, there's small print in every contract, here inserted by an angel.
> 
> Once every seven years the Dutchman could come ashore, and if he could find a woman who would be faithful unto death, he would be released. He meets this other sea-captain who has a beautiful, loving, obedient daughter, who sells him said daughter (in marriage, keeping it respectable, but it's a fairly explicit financial transaction). When they get home, the daughter is mooning sentimentally over a portrait of the fellow, and instantly decides this is her job. He falls in love. She falls in love. Daddy is pleased. Her closest friend the housekeeper isn't sure; however, if Daddy wants it… Fine.
> 
> Thus a lot of ethical difficulties are skipped past.
> 
> Unfortunately, she has a would-be boyfriend. Her new fiancé interprets his pleading for acceptance as lovers' talk, and rushes off to his ship, like any idiot hero of idiot romance. On his way out, hoping to terrify her, he reveals his identity. Boyfriend, father, friend and chorus hold her back, but she follows (having always known who he is), to throw herself off the cliff in token of her good faith. This sacrifice works; both of them are seen rising to heaven, together, embraced.
> 
> Thus the Dutchman doesn't have to learn to cope with real life again, but can relax in death. Also, the girl's purity, whose strength gave her love and faithfulness such power, is not risked by allowing her to take any further independent action, or sullied by any threat of sexual activity. And neither of them has to treat the other like a real person.
> 
> If you read that para you can no doubt work out what I think of some of the propositions the opera embodies. I accept there are things like sacrifice and redemption and salvation, but I go along with what I understand the Quaker attitude to be: you do them here and now, not just in some hereafter when no work is required. I also subscribe to the view that women are perfectly capable of making their own decisions and sticking to them.
> 
>  _My conversion of that story to the HPverse_
> 
> You may not recognise that story in my fic. I did a functional rather than a literal translation of the plot, and did not use the libretto, though I read it closely. Here's the casting:
> 
> Severus Snape = the doomed-to-fly-forever Dutchman  
> Albus Dumbledore = both the Devil and the father  
> Hermione Granger = the daughter  
> Harry Potter = the daughter's friend  
> Ron Weasley = the would-be boyfriend
> 
> I abandoned the physical setting entirely. To emphasise that Hermione is a functioning responsible adult, I made the fic post-Hogwarts. To emphasise that Snape's existence is a hell of meaningless repetition without purpose or escape, I made the fic post-war, and had the 'good' guys win.


End file.
